About 90% of the municipal textile waste generated in the autonomous region of Catalonia, Spain ends up in landfills or incinerators.
- Only 10% of the textile waste is collected separately. In the case of Catalonia, this percentage represented the management of 18,630 tonnes of clothing and other textile materials in 2020.
- The findings are from a study conducted by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). The report, published in Science of The Total Environment, was carried out by researchers Gemma Morell-Delgado, Laura Talens Peiró and Susana Toboso-Chavero.
- The report sheds light on current textile waste disposal practices, both by the public and by authorised management entities, and accounts for their environmental impact.
The findings: Of the 10% that is collected separately through specialised containers located in the street, clean points, or door-to-door collection, 80% is recycled or reused mainly through sale in second-hand shops, flea markets or to other industries.
- Half is sold in Catalonia and Spain, while the remaining half is exported to countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
- Pakistan is the main destination for these clothes, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and Cameroon. In 2020, Pakistan imported 3,500 tonnes of used clothing from Catalonia.
- About 50% of the clothing suitable for reuse and recycling is exported to middle- or low-income countries, where its purpose is unknown, is evidence that "we are moving the problem to other places, without generating a sustainable solution."
- Separate collection emits 40% less CO2eq than non-separate collection (directly to landfills and incinerators). The carbon footprint generated by one tonne of textile waste managed by unseparated collection is 353 kg CO2eq, which is much higher than the 207 kg CO2eq generated by one tonne of textile waste collected separately.
The context: The study analyses the behaviour of citizens with regard to the separation of textile waste. Citizens associate these containers with charitable purposes and believe that they are only for clothes in good condition, so they take the clothes they consider to be in poorer condition to the green point or, above all, throw them in the grey container.
- Citizens are not aware that all the clothes deposited in both the special containers and in the clean point go to the same place, to the authorised management companies, and that, probably, both the clothes in better condition and those in worse condition can be put to good use.
Need for action: The researchers recalled the need to reduce the mass production and consumption of clothing and to promote eco-design through the production of durable, high-quality items, prioritising the use of single materials and recycled materials from the same textile industry.
- The new European regulation expected to come into force next year will make separate collection of textiles in municipalities compulsory. This will oblige institutions to facilitate separate collection and to improve the currently limited management capacity of authorized companies.
What they said:
The most sustainable option is to dispose of clothes in the appropriate containers. If we consider that each person in Catalonia consumes an average of 22kg of clothes per year, we must bear in mind that, even in the ideal scenario of selective collection alone, disposing of these clothes has the same environmental impact per person as traveling seven times from Barcelona to New York in economy class.
— Gemma Morell-Delgado (First Author)
Researcher
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
