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Sweden is a country with high ambitions when it comes to climate smartness and green transition. But maybe things go a little too fast sometimes. Maybe people don’t think about it enough. Maybe they don’t realize how much work it takes to keep track of all the recycling.
From 2025, there will be legislation in force for the entire EU according to which textiles may not be thrown in regular garbage. Discarded clothes that we used to be able to throw in the combustible waste will now be collected separately so that they can be reused.
The idea of the reform is to increase what is called circularity in our societies. We should not consume and discard, but we should make use of our resources and reuse what we produce.
The idea is also for the textile industry to participate in the process by creating products that have a longer shelf life.
As mentioned, Sweden is one of the countries that tends to lead the way in green thinking. However, when it comes to recycling textiles, several problems have arisen right away.
The reform is generally described today as a failure. People simply do not care to sort their textiles and throw them in their regular garbage as usual. Some debaters believe that it is the textile industry that has failed. It is the one that, according to the new legislation, should bear the main responsibility for their products being recycled. However, it has not worked.
The industry has simply not been able to create a functioning infrastructure for recycling. If an ordinary Swede googles the internet to find out where to throw away his or her old, worn-out clothes, he or she is asked to donate whole clothes to second-hand stores or to hand them in to clothing stores. The clothing stores have accepted the responsibility of accepting whole clothes. But they do not accept torn and dirty textiles, and they believe that it would be pointless to do so. Instead, Swedes are asked to throw torn textiles into certain bins at recycling centers. But many Swedes choose not to do that. Instead, they do what they have always done: Textiles burn well and hardly produce any environmental toxins, so why not throw the textiles in the regular trash?
Now the Swedish government seems to have given up and has announced that the legislation will be modified. Broken or stained textiles will not be included in the textile industry’s obligation to take care of worn-out fabrics. This is now welcomed by industry.
In a debate article in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, two representatives of the Swedish textile industry write that it is unreasonable to demand that Swedish textile producers take care of products that are often imported from other countries and that are not always of such a quality that it makes sense to try to reuse them. They even suggest in their article that the EU needs to regulate international textile trade: “The private import of cheap, unsustainable and low-quality textiles via e-commerce platforms is growing, which has a significant impact on the amount of textile waste. If we are to be able to have a functioning management system, it must be stopped. Both EU regulation and increased consumer responsibility are needed here.”
So maybe it went a little too fast. The ambitions were a little too high. The textile industry did not dare to protest when the bills were coming because they did not want to appear irresponsible. Now that the reform has not proven to work quite as well as overambitious politicians had hoped, both the textile industry and politicians realize that we must be realistic.
It sounds like a hopeful and, if you will, conservative conclusion: Circularity and sustainability, but with reason and realism.