Textile EPR

In the EU, 16 kg of textile waste is generated per person every year, and less than a third of it is collected separately. Clothes often go into mixed waste, where they can no longer be sorted, reused or recycled, and municipalities and taxpayers carry the cost to manage this waste. 

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) shifts that cost to the companies that put the products on the market: producers pay a fee on every item they sell, and the money finances collection, sorting, reuse and recycling. Since October 2025, the revised Waste Framework Directive requires every EU Member State to set up such a scheme for textiles and footwear. National laws have to be in place by June 2027, and by 2028, the schemes have to be running. 

In our new series Textile EPR, we put the same three questions to guests at different points in the value chain across five episodes: how does the business work today, how should the textile and apparel system work in 2040, and which circular practices are necessary but not economically feasible today? Each guest also shares how they think an EPR scheme could be designed to close that gap. Our guests are:

• Lisa Oelze, Program Manager for IFAT at Messe München, and Jelica Ramirez, Business Development Manager at GRS PRO, on how EPR schemes work and the role of producer responsibility organisations (PROs)
• Philipp Bonaventura, Corporate Responsibility Manager Strategy & Environment at Schöffel, on how textile EPR will influence brands’ business models, from repair service and take-back to ecodesign
• Louisa Hoyes, Segment Director Textiles at TOMRA, on the business models of collectors, sorters and recyclers, and the economics of automated sorting and fibre-to-fibre recycling
• Alexander Sustal, Lawyer at Redeker Sellner Dahs, on the legal architecture of textile EPR: producer obligations, fee modulation, and harmonisation across member states
• Carina Hofmann-Wellenhof, Project Manager Electronics, Textiles and Circular Design at Circular Republic, on recommendations from 20 organisations for the German textile EPR system

Whether you have never heard of EPR or you are already working on it, this series tells you what is coming for Germany, and what that means for circularity, and your business.