The Rehubs Initiative Reveals Next Steps To Tackling European Textile Waste, In Partnership With Recover™

Transforming a societal challenge into an opportunity

Europe has a 7-7.5 million tons textile waste problem, of which only 30-35% is collected today. Based on the ambitious European Waste law, all EU Member States must separately collect the textile waste in 2 years and a half. While some countries are designing schemes to face the waste collection challenge, currently no large-scale plan exists to process the waste.

The largest source of textile waste (85%) comes from private households and approximately 99% of the textile waste was made using virgin fibers.

Facing this European textile waste challenge and to finally activate circular economy in the textile sector at large scale, EURATEX, in collaboration with Recover™ and other members, launched the ReHubs initiative in 2020.

What is the ReHubs initiative?

The ReHubs initiative brings together key European and world players to solve the European textile waste problem by transforming “waste” into a resource, and to boost the textile circular business model at a large-scale all-over Europe.

This collaboration is set to turn the societal textile waste issue into a business opportunity and fulfil the EU ambitions of the Green Deal, of the mandatory textile waste collection by end 2024 and the transition into Circular Economy.

Recover™ is a Business Council member of ReHubs and in partnership with other pioneering companies, we helped to complete the first Techno Economic Master Study (TES) revealed this month.

Some key findings of the study include:

• The recycling industry could generate around 15,000 direct new jobs by 2030 in Europe, and increase the need for nearshoring and reshoring of textile manufacturing
• The textile recycling industry in Europe could reach €3.5 billion to €4.5 billion by 2030

The study also lays out our next steps with the ReHubs initiative:

• A European textile recycling roadmap proposing objectives and key results to recycle fiber-to-fiber 2.5 million tons of textile waste by 2030.
• A leading collaboration hub with large players and SMEs from across an extended European textile recycling value chain.
• Four launching projects:

1. “Transform Waste into Feedstock” – a project supported by the ReHubs and aimed at building up a first 50,000 tons capacity facility by 2024.
2. Increase the adoption of mechanically recycled fibers in the value chain
3. Expand capacity by solving technical challenges for thermo-mechanical textiles recycling
4. Create capsule collection with post-consumer recycled products

At Recover™, we are committed to working with other dedicated actors in the industry, developing sustainable and circular solutions to drive the fashion industry towards a closed-loop system. Find out more about the ReHubs initiative and our other projects & memberships.