PARIS — Europe’s ambitions to build a circular textile economy face steep economic and structural challenges, according to a new report by Boston Consulting Group and upcyling initiative ReHubs.
Titled “Advancing Textile Circularity,” the report estimates that up to 11 billion euros in investment will be needed across the value chain — including brands and retailers, manufacturers and recyclers — to scale textile-to-textile recycling by 2035.
The study found that Europe generates around 15.2 million tons of textile waste per year, but that less than 1 percent is currently recycled into new textiles. To make recycling viable at scale, the industry would need to reach a “tipping point” of roughly 2.7 million tons per year — equal to about 15 percent of post-consumer textile waste.
The urgency is driven by the continued rise in clothing consumption, with an annual compound growth rate of roughly 5 percent, and the lack of evidence that consumer behavior is shifting in response to sustainability concerns.
“When we expected during the COVID[-19] crisis that consumers would change their behavior, that maybe overall sales would be at a lower level going forward — there’s nothing that is showing that change in consumer behavior,” said Robert van de Kerkhof, chief executive officer of ReHubs.
European consumers now purchase an average of around 95 garments per year, a figure that has increased by 12 percent since 2019 — the last full year before the pandemic.
Van de Kerkhof said the waste problem was “being facilitated by the rise of fast fashion — very low-cost garments, very rapidly changing designs — resulting in higher production volumes and lower utilization.”
Rising incomes and the expansion of the global middle class continue to drive higher consumption, offsetting gains made through sustainability initiatives or consumer awareness campaigns.
“This is outpacing population growth,” he said. “The moment people have a little disposable income, they start to buy more clothes.”
As a result, volumes continue to grow even as the industry attempts to address its environmental impact.
“These trends we have seen over the past decade are not expected to change going forward, so they will continue to drive the waste problem,” he said. “An additional concern is the shortening of product lifetimes.”
Lower-quality garments are increasingly harder to resell, repair or reuse, further shortening product lifespans and increasing the volume of waste entering the system.
In France, consumers now buy 48 new pieces of clothing per year, with roughly two-thirds never worn. The low-price, fast-fashion model has embedded overconsumption into the system while reinforcing inefficiencies in current production and retail models.
Despite growing volumes of discarded clothing, Europe’s waste management infrastructure isn’t prepared to handle textile recycling at scale.
Roughly half of post-consumer textile waste is never formally collected, instead ending up in general household waste streams. Of the material that is collected, only a fraction is sorted for recycling, with most still directed toward landfill, incineration or export — generally to the global south for resale or reuse.
The study, focused on post-consumer waste, said the recycling rate remains minuscule — barely 0.1 percent when measured as textile-to-textile recycling — and that the system is designed primarily for resale rather than recovery and recycling.
The report emphasized the need to establish a harmonized baseline for measuring textile waste in Europe, addressing a long-standing lack of consistent data across the industry.
“We need a unified stance as an industry for one version of the truth,” said Evan Wiener, board adviser at ReHubs.
The cover of the BCG and ReHubs report.
Courtesy of ReHubs
Without a shared understanding of volumes, costs and infrastructure needs, stakeholders have struggled to agree on both the scale of the problem and the solutions required to address it. The report argues that without standardized definitions and reporting requirements, policymakers and businesses will continue to operate with incomplete or inconsistent information.
“What gets measured gets done,” van de Kerkhof said, adding that a consistent data framework could steer both regulation and investment, and help create a region-wide approach.
“This requires a level of coordination that doesn’t exist today,” Wiener said.
Even if infrastructure gaps are addressed, the economics of textile-to-textile recycling remain a major obstacle.
The report estimates that reaching the 2.7 million-ton tipping point will require between 8 billion euros and 11 billion euros in capital investment, alongside 5 billion euros to 6.5 billion euros in annual operating costs.
Much of this investment would be concentrated in scaling recycling technologies, and expanding sorting and pre-processing capacities, particularly for cotton, polyester and blended materials that make up the majority of the waste stream.
These investments would need to come from across the value chain. Private companies — including recyclers, yarn manufacturers and fashion brands — are expected to provide much of the capital, but only if the industry can make the economics work.
This will require stronger policy support from the EU and national governments, including regulatory incentives such as recycled content requirements, and financial mechanisms to help close the cost gap, since textile-to-textile fibers are not expected to reach price parity with virgin materials.
“This is a new material. It’s a new value chain,” Wiener said. “We do not think [price parity] should be the goal.” Instead, recycled fibers should be viewed as a distinct product category with its own cost structure and value proposition.
Without this combination of private investment and public support, the infrastructure needed is unlikely to materialize at scale. Costs could gradually come down, but only if sufficient volumes are reached — and that depends on coordinated industry action.
“It’s a major investment without a very clear business case,” van de Kerkhof said.
Breaking that cycle will require simultaneous action across multiple fronts, including stronger policy frameworks, financial incentives and clearer demand signals from brands, such as commitments to incorporate recycled fibers into products.
Without that, the result is what the report describes as a supply-demand “deadlock.”
Beyond environmental concerns, the report frames textile recycling as a question of industrial strategy for Europe.
“If we don’t build this system, others will take that opportunity,” van de Kerkhof said, adding that failure to build domestic recycling capacity could shift production to regions with lower costs or more aggressive investment strategies.
At the same time, scaling textile recycling could offer resource resilience, allowing Europe to retain valuable raw materials within its economy rather than relying on imports. Keeping fibers in circulation could reduce exposure to volatile commodity markets and strengthen the region’s manufacturing base.
ReHubs has pushed back its own goalposts for scaling recycling capacity from 2030 to 2035, reflecting the complexity of the challenge.
