Textile reuse per person per year

Directive 2008/98/EC obliges Member States to take measures to encourage reuse as part of their waste prevention programmes and to monitor and assess these measures on reuse. In accordance with Articles 9(4) and 37(3) WFD and Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/19, EU Member States are required to report data on the reuse of textiles. Member States are required to report quantitative data every three years and qualitative data annually. In 2023, Member States provided both quantitative and qualitative data to the European Environment Agency for reference year 2021. In 2024, the reporting focused only on measures for the reference year 2022. This initial reporting cycle marks the beginning of efforts to assess and quantify reuse activities. While data quality is anticipated to improve over time, current data should be interpreted with caution.

Reporting countries are free to select the approach or a combination of approaches that seems most suitable for their purposes. Therefore, the dataset comprises data gathered using different approaches, and so it is critical that no inter-country comparisons are made using this dataset. As 2023 was the first cycle of reporting, the relative accuracy and robustness of the approaches is not yet clear. It is expected that this data will strengthen as the reporting process matures (EEA, 2024).

The consumption of textile products is a key driver of environmental and climate pressures across the value chain. The EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles seeks to address these challenges by promoting sustainable practices and reducing overconsumption (EC, 2022). A central focus of the strategy is to extend product lifespans through circular design and encourage a shift towards high-quality, durable, and circular textiles that support reuse. Monitoring the amount of textiles reused per person provides a valuable indicator of reuse uptake across the EU.