How NOT to turn textile waste into value

‎Regularly, our Secretary General Lutz Walter shares his insights and knowledge through his blogposts, covering a wide range of topics related to textile sustainability and innovation. Follow his blog to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges that the textile industry is facing today.

"Studies or opinion pieces on textile recycling often start with the trope of so much textile waste just lying around waiting for somebody to discover the immense value that can be created from it – waste to value or trash to cash in short [...] For anybody thinking straight, this immediately begs the question: Why does this opportunity exist? Why does nobody exploit it today? If there is money to be made, in a free market economy, people typically don’t wait around for somebody to fire the starting shot, they just do it."

In his latest blog post, our Secretary General Lutz Walter takes a look at the often-inflated promises surrounding textile recycling and the idea of turning “waste into value.” He argues that the economic case for large-scale post-consumer textile recycling is far weaker than many reports suggest, as high sorting, preprocessing, and recycling costs far exceed the low market value of recovered fibres.