Share of the most popular clothing sold online that contains recycled content

In February 2026, on average 13% of the most popular clothing items sold online on Zalando in five different European countries contained a minimum of 20% recycled content. Overall, the share of men’s clothing containing recycled content is more or less equal to the share of women’s clothing containing recycled content.

An analysis of the most popular clothing items sold online in February 2026 across five Zalando web shops in Europe shows that, on average, 13% of these items contain at least 20% recycled content. Unlike the previous analysis from May 2024, no significant differences were found between the analysed countries or between men’s and women’s clothing, although men’s clothing still contains slightly more recycled content. Italy is the exception: there, the most popular women’s clothing items contain almost twice as much recycled content as the most popular men's items.

Across product categories, loungewear (including sleepwear) and suits have the highest shares of top-selling products with recycled content. Approximately one third of best-selling items in these categories contain at least 20% recycled material. In contrast, none of the most-sold socks or tights contain any recycled content.

Among all items that do contain recycled material, 40% have a recycled content share between 20% and 30%. Another 32% consist of at least 50% recycled content, and 10% are made from 100% recycled material.

Polyester, cotton, and polyamide are the most commonly used recycled fibres. For cotton products, the share of recycled content is generally lower (on average 26% recycled cotton content) compared to polyester products (on average 72% recycled polyester content) or polyamide products. However, the use of recycled content is equally common in both cotton and polyester items.

One of the objectives of the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, is that by 2030, all textile products placed on the EU market are to a great extent made of recycled fibres (EC, 2022). This objective has been included in the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which entered into force in July 2024 and replaces the Ecodesign Directive (EU, 2024). The ESPR establishes a framework for ecodesign requirements, such as longer use, reparability, recyclability, use of recycled content. To date, no target has been set on the amount of recycled content or for which products the (partial) use of recycled content would become mandatory. Monitoring the use of recycled content on products put on the market is important as it is an indicator for the uptake of recycled content by the market which on its turn drives the collection, sorting and recycling of waste textiles.

In addition, as part of the broader European Commission’s Clean Industrial Deal, the Circular Economy Act (CE Act), is planned EU legislation expected to be adopted in 2026 and aimed at doubling the European circularity rate to 24% by 2030. Its objective is to create a robust internal market for secondary raw materials and to increase the demand for recycled materials (EC, 2026).

Definition

Share of most online sold men’s and women’s clothing in five different EU Member States that contains recycled content.

Methodology

In February 2026, detailed product information was scraped from the Zalando web shops of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, and Italy. For each country, the 20 ‘most popular’ clothing items per clothing category were collected for both men and women. This resulted in a total of 3,062 records containing detailed product information, including data on the use of recycled content. For each country, the share of items containing recycled content was calculated by dividing the number of such items by the total number of items scraped. The overall average was then calculated across the five countries.

Although the dataset provides a geographical spread, it is not fully representative of the entire EU27. Furthermore, the analysis is based solely on Zalando data. While Zalando is one of Europe’s leading online clothing retailers, its offerings do not fully reflect the broader European clothing market.

A previous analysis using the same methodology was performed in May 2024. It should be noted that the share of recycled content is based only on the ‘most popular’ items sold at the moment of data scraping. Even so, the February 2026 results show a significantly higher share of top‑selling items containing recycled material compared to the 2024 analysis.

Metadata

Data source: Zalando

Unit: Number of items

Temporal coverage: February 2026

Geographic coverage: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy

Literature

· EC (2022), EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/textiles-strategy_en)

· EU (2024), Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 establishing a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for sustainable products, amending Directive (EU) 2020/1828 and Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 and repealing Directive 2009/125/EC (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1781/oj)

· EC (2026), Circular Economy Act (https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/circular-economy_en#circular-economy-act)

Share of the most popular clothing sold online that contains recycled content

References and footnotes