In July, Defra appointed a “Textile Industry Advisor” on a secondment basis to guide its textiles strategy.
It’s a promising development after years of industry lobbying.
Secondee Gerrard Fisher is the co-founder of WEFT, a sustainable fashion consultancy with a focus on Extended Producer Responsibility systems for textiles (tEPR).
WEFT receives funding from the UK Fashion & Textiles Association and was developed to create a white paper proving the viability of an EPR system for textiles, alongside other textiles sustainability objectives.
This project ended in April 2024 and saw over 500,000 types of garments analysed.
It concluded that a tEPR system in the UK is “viable” and would incentivise circularity.
In a foreword to the white paper, Adam Mansell, UKFT CEO, said: “The evidence has been tested, refined and presented as open source: the challenge is now on for industry to adopt it.”
Two years later, and the UK is still without an EPR system for textiles.
This is despite such a policy mechanism being phased in for the EU for April 2028 and the development of the government’s textiles Circular Economy taskforce.
The taskforce was established in December 2024 to create a Circular Economy Growth Plan, with a focus on six priority areas which included textiles.
After a successful development phase, the plan was due to be published in autumn 2025 but has now been delayed indefinitely.
Many in the waste and recycling sector have lamented the delay, no more so than the textiles sector which has desperately been waiting for policy support.
Despite taskforce members having signed an NDA, it was all but confirmed that the growth plan would include a roadmap to tEPR for the UK.
The system would make fashion companies responsible for funding the collection, sorting, reuse, recycling, and disposal of textile products at the end of their life.
Under most EPR systems, producers are usually expected to report the volume of clothing they put onto the market and pay a corresponding fee, which is distributed to those managing textile waste.
In the UK, this will likely in part go to “textiles merchants” who collect, sort and then distribute used clothing and other textiles.
These merchants have had an uphill battle in recent years, with official estimations suggesting as many as 50% have had to close their doors and many others now having to charge local authorities to collect clothing from recycling centres.
Alan Wheeler, CEO of the Textiles Recycling Association (TRA), said: “Everyone is desperate to get textiles EPR up and running.
“With the industry on its knees people really need the direct injection of cash now into collection and sorting, but also the industry investment that could also come along to develop innovation, more re-use and more recycling markets.
“With more markets and more demand there will be more “pull” for used textile products and their value will increase.”
The sector has been desperately calling out for tEPR, and – although the appointment of Fisher can’t be taken as a direct indicator that the policy is coming – the development may be a sign that Defra is taking real steps to understand the difficulties faced by the sector.
Dawn Dungate, Specialist Textile Reuse and Recycling Consultant, said: “I welcome the fact that Defra appears to be strengthening its understanding of the sector, but we shouldn’t automatically assume that means textile EPR is around the corner.
“What it should hopefully mean is that when government does move forward, the policy is informed by people who understand how this industry actually operates.”
However, experts have warned that it may still be many years until fashion companies are held responsible for the waste they create and sell under a tEPR system.
Wheeler added: “Experience from the EU has shown how long it can take to implement textiles EPR.
“It was in 2018, under a revision of the Waste Framework Directive, that EPR was being talked about in Brussels and the mandatory collection of textiles by municipalities was introduced as a priority.
“It took a further four years for their circular textiles strategy to be published and we will still have to wait until March 2028 for textiles EPR to become mandatory.”
The UK is currently in the process of implementing an EPR scheme for packaging, which was first laid out in the 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy. Only next year will the policy be underway in its completion – nine years after its initial proposal.
All the same, the appointment of Fisher seems like a genuinely positive step forward. The sector will eagerly be awaiting the potential industry consultation.
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