The Netherlands’ Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) has issued a searing indictment of the global fast fashion industry, warning that its business model is crippling efforts to establish a circular textile economy.
- The just-released report, titled “Fast Fashion Undermines the Circular Textiles Value Chain,” calls for immediate action from policymakers, producers, and global stakeholders to rescue the circular agenda from collapse.
- The ILT report is a wake-up call with a fast-expiring snooze button. The textile sector has long been called out for its social and environmental impacts—but circularity was supposed to be the fix. That fix is now under threat.
- Without coordinated pressure on producers, policy-backed infrastructure investment, and a clear shift in consumer and cultural behaviour, the circular textile economy risks being yet another green promise that dies under the weight of fast fashion’s speed.
WHEN FASHION MOVES TOO FAST: In today’s hyper-accelerated fashion landscape, brands release new collections at dizzying speeds—often weekly or even daily. This ultra-fast model fuels overproduction and overconsumption, making clothes cheaper, lower in quality, and less likely to be reused or recycled.
- The ILT report paints a dire picture: the sheer volume and poor quality of garments entering the system have overwhelmed collectors, sorters, and recyclers. The result? A global textile chain cracking under the pressure of its own excess. Fast fashion is not only a climate and labour issue—it is rapidly becoming a circularity crisis.
- This publication is based on dozens of reports, data analyses, seminars, company visits and background interviews with experts at home and abroad. The ILT found that fast fashion undermines the goals of a circular economy. In the current clothing market, the targets for a circular textiles value chain are almost unachievable, without joint effort from all involved parties in the textile supply chain, both in the Netherlands and internationally.
Cracks in the System: Key Challenges Identified
- Overproduction and Declining Quality: The rise of ultra-fast fashion—where garments are made to be worn once or twice—has dramatically reduced the average lifespan of clothing. Synthetic blends, poor stitching, and trend-led aesthetics make reuse and recycling nearly impossible. The report emphasises that sorting facilities receive increasing volumes of garments that are unfit for resale, repair, or fibre recovery.
- Export Dependence and Waste Colonialism: Used clothing exports from the EU are increasingly being sent to lower-income countries. While this is often portrayed as “reuse,” the reality is more complex. An estimated 45% of exported clothing is unfit for wear and ends up as waste in countries without the infrastructure to handle it. Local landfills, rivers, and informal dumpsites are bearing the brunt of Europe's clothing excess. The report frames this not just as a logistical challenge but as an ethical issue—a practice of exporting responsibility under the guise of reuse.
- Financially Broken Circular Infrastructure: Textile collectors and sorters operate at the sharp edge of the fashion waste avalanche. Their business models rely on being able to resell garments for reuse or feed recycling systems with clean, sortable fibres. But the avalanche of fast fashion—low-value, low-durability clothing—has tipped the balance. As more waste pours in and less can be salvaged, economic viability is collapsing.
- Policy Gaps and Weak EPR Implementation: While many countries are now rolling out Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for textiles, most schemes are underperforming. The ILT report critiques current frameworks for lacking “eco-modulation”—a mechanism that financially rewards sustainable design and penalises poor-quality products. Without modulation, EPR becomes little more than a fee collection exercise—one that fails to shift production practices.
The Opportunity: What Needs to Change: Despite the bleak assessment, the ILT report outlines clear pathways forward. The core message: circularity isn’t dead—but it’s suffocating. To revive it, every node of the textile chain must evolve.
- Embed Circular Design at Source: Circularity must begin at the drawing board. Brands need to adopt eco-design principles: durability, mono-materials, recyclability, and repairability. Incentives for such practices need to be built into EPR schemes, procurement policies, and fiscal frameworks. Eco-design isn’t just a moral imperative—it’s a business advantage in a resource-scarce future.
- Make Polluters Pay: ILT calls for the introduction of tariff-based penalties on low-quality imports made from virgin, non-recyclable materials. These would level the playing field for brands investing in sustainable alternatives. At the same time, policy should support domestic collection, sorting, and high-end recycling infrastructure through targeted subsidies and public-private partnerships.
- Enforce Transparency in Export Practices: EU countries must rethink used-clothing export strategies. Transparency and traceability should be mandatory: where garments go, who receives them, and what percentage is actually reused versus dumped. Exported waste should no longer be labelled as “secondhand clothing” unless it meets quality and utility thresholds.
- Reshape Consumer Expectations: Public behaviour is a pressure point. Fast fashion thrives on disposability and dopamine shopping. Education, campaigns, and digital transparency tools can shift consumer expectations around durability and repair. The ILT recommends state-funded awareness drives and circular fashion literacy integrated into school curricula.
A CALL FOR GLOBAL COORDINATION: One of the strongest messages of the report is that no country can fix this alone. Circularity cannot mean closing the loop in one part of the world by opening waste streams in another. The textile value chain is global, and solutions must be international in scope.
- ILT urges alignment with the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan, but also stresses the importance of involving producer countries, re-exporting nations, and waste-importing countries in shared governance.
This includes creating:
- Common standards for eco-design
- Shared guidelines for acceptable secondhand exports
- Financial support mechanisms for circular infrastructure in the Global South
WHAT THEY SAID
Recycled textile fibres enter our spinning mill as a raw material. It is important that the fibre, our input material, is of good quality. Occasionally, the fibres supplied are so short that it is almost dust, and spinning yarn is impossible. That is why it is important that the textiles newly entering the market are of good quality and do not fall below the lower limit, because nothing can be done with them in the final stage.
— Paula Gerritsen
Director
Spinning Jenny, Nijverdal
