Building Europe’s Circular Fashion Economy

Global textile demand continues to grow, even through periods of crisis. According to van de Kerkhof, the fibre industry has shown remarkably steady long-term growth of around three to four percent per year. That growth is directly reflected in rising waste volumes. The biggest problem is post-consumer waste: garments that consumers discard after use. Production waste and unsold goods can at least partly be addressed through factory efficiency, forecasting and inventory management. Post-consumer waste is different. It is dispersed, difficult to collect and increasing rapidly.

In Europe alone, post-consumer textile waste has already reached around 13.3 million tonnes, van de Kerkhof said, and is expected to rise sharply by 2035. At the same time, less than one percent is currently recycled back into new textile materials. That gap illustrates the structural weakness of the current system: Europe produces large amounts of textile waste, but still lacks the capacity to process it in a circular way.

Van de Kerkhof identified fast fashion as the main growth driver behind this trend. The rapid expansion of fast and ultra-fast fashion has shortened product lifecycles, increased consumption volumes and accelerated disposal. At the same time, the fibre mix is shifting further towards polyester, which remains the cheapest and most scalable material for mass-market fashion. Cotton, by contrast, faces limits due to water scarcity and pesticide use, while polyester continues to dominate growth.

This matters because the circular challenge is not only about volume, but about composition. Many garments today are made from blends, contain elastane, trims, sewing threads and chemical finishes, and are therefore far more difficult to recycle than a simple mono-material product.

One of the most striking observations in van de Kerkhof’s talk concerned the reason garments reach end of life. In many cases, consumers do not discard clothing because it is physically worn out. They discard it because they no longer want it. That “emotional end of life,” as he described it, is a crucial factor in fashion. Styles change, preferences shift, and garments may be unwanted long before they are unusable.

This limits the potential of reuse alone. Van de Kerkhof was clear that reuse, repair and resale should be promoted. But he also argued that these strategies will not absorb the volumes currently entering the market. Even garments that are still wearable do not always find a second buyer, especially as cheap new products compete directly with second-hand goods. In other words: extending product life is essential, but it will not eliminate the need for recycling.

If the need is obvious, why is progress so slow? Van de Kerkhof named several reasons. The first is fragmentation. Supply, demand, collection, sorting and recycling are not yet connected in a way that creates industrial scale. The second is weak economic alignment. Recycling cannot currently compete with virgin materials on price, and many businesses lack the incentive to invest. The third barrier is policy uncertainty. Regulation is moving, but in many areas too slowly or without enough precision to give investors confidence.

Some early recycling ventures have already struggled or gone bankrupt, not because the problem disappeared, but because Europe remains weak at scaling innovation from start-up phase to industrial maturity. Capital is another major bottleneck. Building collection, sorting, preprocessing and recycling capacity requires billions in investment. According to van de Kerkhof, Europe may need around 10 billion Euro to 15 billion Euro to create enough capacity to process around 2.5 to 2.7 million tonnes of textile waste. That level, he argued, would represent a tipping point: large enough to bring down costs and begin creating a viable circular market.

A central theme in van de Kerkhof’s presentation was the importance of data. Recycling systems can only work if products can be identified, sorted and directed into the right processes. That means the industry needs reliable information on fibre composition, blends and chemicals. This is where Digital Product Passports become highly relevant. Not simply as a reporting tool, but as an operational basis for circularity.

Van de Kerkhof pointed to a simple example: a polo shirt labelled “100% cotton” may still contain polyester sewing thread and a polyester care label. That matters for recycling. Chemical recyclers in particular need highly consistent feedstock. Unknown material content or incompatible additives can reduce efficiency, damage quality and undermine the economics of the process. Without better product data, Europe cannot build effective sorting systems, nor can it supply recyclers with the input quality they need. As van de Kerkhof made clear, data is not a side issue. It is the foundation of the circular transition.

Van de Kerkhof also argued against a fragmented national approach. Not every country needs its own complete recycling infrastructure. Some stages, such as collection, are local by nature. Others, especially advanced recycling, require scale and may only make sense in a limited number of regional hubs across Europe. That creates a challenge for national waste systems and national EPR schemes, but it also reflects industrial reality. The circular economy will only work if Europe thinks in cross-border infrastructure rather than isolated national solutions.

His organisation, ReHubs, is working on precisely this issue by bringing together collectors, sorters, recyclers, brands and investors to build a more coordinated system. The goal is not simply to support new technology, but to connect the missing parts of the value chain and make circularity investable.

Van de Kerkhof left little doubt that legislation will be decisive. Today, most recyclers and sorters cannot operate profitably at scale without support. Virgin materials remain cheaper, and current EPR fees in some markets are far too low to finance real system change. If Europe wants circularity to move beyond pilot projects, policy must create the right economic conditions.

That means stronger incentives for recycled content, better funding mechanisms and EPR models that actually match the scale of the investments required. At the same time, Europe must move quickly. Van de Kerkhof warned that China is advancing fast in textile recycling. If Europe creates recycled-content demand without building domestic recycling capacity, it risks importing circular materials while remaining stuck with its own waste problem.

Van de Kerkhof’s message was ultimately pragmatic rather than ideological. Recycling is not the first step in circularity, and it will not solve overproduction on its own. Product durability, repair, reuse and resale remain essential. But given the sheer volumes of textile waste and the realities of consumer behaviour, large-scale recycling will also be unavoidable.

That is why Europe now faces a strategic choice. It can continue to treat circularity as a sustainability aspiration. Or it can begin to build the infrastructure, economics and data systems needed to make it a functioning industrial reality. For van de Kerkhof, the answer is obvious: without that shift, Europe will not build a circular textile economy. It will simply accumulate waste more efficiently.