Reused garments have a footprint 70 times lower
A specialist group dedicated to textiles that the European Recycling Industries Confederation (EuRIC) set up at the end of 2019 has published a new lifecycle assessment (LCA) report.
Important findings to emerge from the report include the statement that recycling a garment for people to wear instead of manufacturing a new one has an environmental impact that is almost 70 times lower.
The LCA report says, for example, that preparing a pre-owned garment for reuse requires only 0.01% of the volume of water that making a new garment consumes.
The Brussels-based group, EuRIC Textiles, says the study confirms waste hierarchy assumptions. In that hierarchy, reuse has always been above recycling, and recycling above waste. Regrettably, though, EuRIC Textiles president, Mariska Boer points out, 62% of used clothing and textiles end up in household waste, meaning “valuable textiles” are likely to be incinerated or landfilled.
We aim to cover this story in detail in the next issue of WSA.
