There is a significant potential to reduce environmental impacts caused by textiles both during the production and use phase. Despite the highly global nature of the value chain many of the potential measures for reducing lifecycle impacts caused by Nordic consumption of textiles can be implemented in Nordic countries. This would include encouraging changes in the way textile products are offered to, and used by, consumers and improving the process for dealing with used textiles so that it is more in line with the waste hierarchy. More than half of the used textiles in Nordic countries are currently sent to landfill or waste incineration after their first life. Encouraging waste prevention (through greater reuse and longer functional life-times of textile products) and increasing recycling of the fraction of textiles that can’t be reused will offset both the production of new textile products and the demand for raw materials for production.
This project will develop and propose possible policy packages which would encourage the establishment of extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems and innovative new business models aimed at increasing reuse and recycling of textiles in the Nordic region.
