Every year, millions of tonnes of food and textile waste are generated in the EU. The mantra of reduce, reuse and recycle to promote the circular economy does not seem to be enough to drive change.
ADVERTISEMENTAround 60 million tonnes of food waste are generated in the EU every year, causing economic losses of €132 billion. Annually, the bloc also generates almost 13 million tonnes of textile waste, of which 5.2 million tonnes are clothing and footwear, equivalent to 12 kg per person.
The European Council and the European Parliament have just reached a provisional agreement on the Waste Framework Directive, setting new reduction targets to be met by 2030:
– 30% in retail, supermarkets, restaurants, catering and households
– 10% in the manufacture and the processing of foods
But the farming sector, where about 11% of food waste occurs, was exempted. “One of the problems is that farming has become a very hot political potato in recent months. So, legislators are sort of hesitant to impose further requirements on the farming sector,” said Robert Hodgson, who followed the issue for Euronews.
“The European Parliament originally wanted to have a review by the end of this year, with a possible target for farming to be put in place. But after the EU elections, the European Parliament shifted to the right and in the end of negotiations it was decided to do a review in 2027,” he added.
Some member states are performing better at reducing food waste, with the best mechanisms for donating food that is still safe to eat in place in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal.
But a lot of food that is still good for consumption ends up in the trash bin, especially in high-end environments like casinos, hotels and cruises.
“This demands a change of how people are working with food, how do we use all the ingredients. When I talk to chefs in restaurants, they are actually very keen to work on this because also nobody likes to throw out good food,” said green Danish lawmaker Rasmus Nordqvist, shadow rapporteur on this directive.
Combat against fast and cheap fashion?
There are no specific targets for the textile sector, which will instead be covered by the Extended Producer Responsibility regime. The companies will have to pay a certain fee to cover expenses related to re-collection, sorting and recycling of clothes once they become waste.
“Each country will have leeway to increase those fees in the case of fast fashion, based on ideas about how long clothes are in the market is and how long they’re intended to be worn. They can increase the fees for companies that produce ‘throwaway’ clothes,” according to Robert Hodgson.
The EU also participates in the export of illegal textile waste exports to less developed countries. Austria, Denmark, Finland, France and Sweden support a proposal for textiles to be classed alongside plastics and electronics in an international treaty aimed at preventing transfer of hazardous waste to less developed countries.
Rasmus Nordqvist worked in the textile industry for two decades before becoming a politician and expects the directive to curb that practice as “we are actually demanding producers to take responsibility all the way through the value chain”.
“We’re not going to change the whole industry just with this directive, but it’s an important step because we need to first of all look at how are we consuming textiles, but also what do we do with them. And we need circularity within fashion industry. But that’s the next step,” he said.
Foods and textiles are two European industries which most need to adapt to the Green Deal, to make the industry more environmentally friendly. But it’s not just about production methods which reduce use of natural resources and polluting gas emissions. Avoiding consumer waste and developing new approaches to waste culture is a big part of the challenge.
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Journalist: Isabel Marques da Silva
Content production: Pilar Montero López
Video production: Zacharia Vigneron
ADVERTISEMENTGraphism: Loredana Dumitru
Editorial coordination: Ana Lázaro Bosch and Jeremy Fleming-Jones
