If you are a manufacturer — of anything, be it apparel, footwear, accessories or anything else under the sun, this is for you.
As the globe grapples with the horrors of climate change being increasingly witnessed in the form of flash floods, cloud bursts, unseasonal rain or lack of it — just some of the visible signs, industries across the spectrum are scurrying to set their processes more compatible with the planet. Of course, there is a lot of greenwashing being done too.
Irrespective, ripple effects of a policy legislation expected in the Global North will soon be felt in this part of the world too. Let’s just talk about the textiles-apparel-fashion-footwear industry.
The European Commission (EC) wants to introduce mandatory and harmonised Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes for textiles in all Member States of the European Union. The proposed ruleswill make producers responsible for the full lifecycle of textile products and to support the sustainable management of textile waste.
Now this is something the Global South had it ingrained almost in its DNA but somewhere along the winds of change swept all of this aside. Day to day life also saw every product being repaired and reused till it could no longer be done so. Remember those sewing machines, or hand embroidered bedsheets, table cloths, dupattas, saris and a whole lot more that were handed down from mother to daughter and grand-daughter, and they continued as family heirlooms to be occasionally eased out from muslin-wrapped cloth and folded back after sunning with utmost care, and love, and other regalia of nostalgia
Now, this responsibility of ensuring that a product lasts longer and that it can be repaired and reused will ensure that the current methods of highly unsustainable production and consumption will be decelerated.
This initiative will also accelerate the development of separate collection, sorting, reuse and recycling sector for textiles and increase the availability of used textiles to create local jobs and save money for consumers, while alleviating the impacts of textile production on natural resources.
The new proposals also seek to promote research and development into innovative technologies for the circularity of the textiles sector, such as fibre-to-fibre recycling.
The Commission proposal on a targeted amendment of the Waste Framework Directive will now be considered by the European Parliament and the Council in the ordinary legislative procedure.
The background to this is that the EU generates 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste per year. Clothing and footwear alone accounts for 5.2 million tonnes of waste, equivalent to 12 kg of waste per person every year. Currently, only 22% of post-consumer textile waste is collected separately for re-use or recycling, while the remainder is often incinerated or landfilled.
The Waste Framework Directive is the EU's legal framework for waste management in the EU. It sets the definitions related to waste management, including definitions of waste, recycling and recovery, the waste hierarchy and basic concepts.
Imagine the waste being generated in a country like ours! It is time that we as individual enterprises take the lead and be ready when the law comes knocking on our doors!
