What happens to non-clothing textile waste?
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.
"There is a lot of potential to increase circularity of all types of textile products if we are willing to see the big picture and its nuances, if we fully understand why and how textile materials and products are used by manufacturers and consumers, if we focus on professional end-of-life management, if we share technical knowledge, operational and regulatory best practices and if we tackle unfair competition with virgin materials that do not incorporate the full life cycle cost of their extraction, use and end-of-life treatment".
In his latest blog post, our Secretary General Lutz Walter sheds light on a German study that exposes a largely overlooked facet of the textile industry: the vast volume of non-clothing textile waste, from mattresses and carpets to artificial turf and diapers, and the staggering reality of how little of it is reused or recycled. He explores why circular economy principles remain far out of reach for most technical textiles and what policy, design, and infrastructure changes are needed to change that.
