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Why fashion needs extended producer responsibility regulations

by | Mar 25, 2024

Fashion is engineered for disposability. It is generally understood that 100 billion clothes are produced annually, most of which are thrown away within a year, and only about 1% of this is recycled back into textiles. This is unsustainable as fashion contributes about 10% of the total global carbon emissions, making it one of the largest carbon emitters in the world.  A circular textile organisation in Ghana, The Or Foundation states that without intervention, “the fashion industry is projected to account for 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050”.

Since there is no sign of a reduction in carbon emissions or a deceleration in the rate of production and consumption, there is a pressing need for fashion to adopt more sustainable and circular practices. And, since this is not happening voluntarily, there is growing interest in and adoption by governments of extended producer responsibility (EPR) measures to hold fashion manufacturers accountable for the entire lifecycle of their products—from production to disposal. In South Africa, EPR has been introduced for many industries but not for fashion. Yet.

Threads of Responsibility

Extended producer responsibility refers to an approach to policy that shifts the responsibility of a product’s lifecycle to the producer, including its design, take-back, recycling and final disposal. It can also be described as an “upstream shift” policy approach as it makes producers, not municipal waste managers, responsible for managing their products when they’ve reached their end-of-use stage. WRAP a climate action NGO describes EPR as a “regulatory mechanism used to finance costs associated to the environmentally friendly management of a product or its packaging once it reaches its end-of-life by placing such costs on manufacturers/sellers (‘producers’).”

There is typically a fee involved. In some cases, there could be fines and other penalties if organisations do not comply with EPR regulations.

Why extended producer responsibility supports circular fashionSecondhand shoes for sale at the Mbare market in Harare. Image: Jackie May

Growing concerns

Most fashion produced now by big corporate brands and retailers is characterised as fast. The rating app Good On You defines fast fashion as, ‘cheap, trendy clothing that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity culture and turns them into garments at breakneck speed to meet consumer demand.’ In turn, this consumer demand (or behaviour) is influenced by extensive and expensive marketing campaigns.

EPR measures would help slow down fashion by advancing a circular economy which involves transitioning away from the traditional linear model of “consume, make, dispose”. In South Africa, EPR in fashion would facilitate job creation through the collection, sorting and recycling of fashion and textiles.

Local EPR regulations do exist. Originally gazetted in May 2021, they are for the electrical and electronic equipment sector, the lighting sector, and paper and plastic packaging. By paying a fee towards EPR, brands and manufacturers not only foot the bill for managing their waste, EPR law has the potential to make them reconsider their design and fast fashion approach.

In 2023, EPR regulations in South Africa were amended to include portable batteries, lubricant oils, and pesticide sectors. The country is yet to introduce EPR regulations for fashion and textiles.

The EPR responsibility is typically entrusted to third-party entities, known as producer responsibility organisations (PROs) such as PETCO, which is a PRO for plastics in South Africa—and are the ones with whom companies register and remit a fee. The EPR fee enables the infrastructure required to collect and recirculate products and materials and for the PRO to help companies meet legislated and corporate targets.

Without EPR, there is little financial incentive to recycle fashion (and textiles) back into textiles as it is hard for market forces to make sense of textile recycling, which is why EPR—a kind of tax that becomes a subsidy—is important to encourage a shift to a circular economy. To date, according to The Or Foundation, “textile waste has been handled through three principal waste streams—municipal landfills, product downcycling into materials such as insulation and through the global secondhand clothing trade.”

The recent bankruptcy of Renewcell, a cotton-to-cotton recycling venture in Sweden, is evidence of the complexity of the issue. Ashley Holding describes Renewcell as a textile ‘advanced’ or ‘chemical’ textiles recycler that aims to process mostly cotton textiles (such as bedsheets and jeans) with a series of chemical treatment steps to produce a substitute for wood pulp from trees, which was intended to make, for the most part, viscose fibres”. This bankruptcy dampened many hopeful spirits.

Why extended producer responsibility supports circular fashionSecondhand underwear for sale at the Mbare market in Harare. Image: Jackie May

EPR in France and beyond

France is the forerunner as the first country in the world to adopt EPR for textiles which it did in 2008. In France, the average EPR fee per unit is between €0.01 and €0.06 (R0.20 – R1,23).

In the European Union, according to WRAP, the mandatory separate collection of textiles will apply to all producers by January 2025. “Producers will be required to cover the costs of managing textile waste and producers will be given incentives to reduce waste and increase the circularity of textile products, and online sellers will have to show that producers meeting EPR requirements,” states WRAP.

In addition to waste management, the EU commission’s vision is that all textile products placed on the EU market are durable, repairable, and recyclable, and aims to reverse overproduction/overconsumption, discourage the destruction of unsold/returned textiles, and tackle greenwashing to raise awareness about sustainable textiles.

But while countries across the world are introducing EPR, The Or Foundation is calling for EPR to extend borders. It argues that EPR funds be transferred across “borders to support the frontline communities managing the Global North’s clothing waste”.

Here’s why:

Currently, sorting facilities, recyclers and exporting companies in France and across Europe, many of whom operate socially beneficial programs to the highest standard, receive money from the French EPR program that is insufficient to support true circularity. On top of this, no financial support is offered to the countries and communities across the Global South that actually manage the clothing that is collected through the EPR program. –The Or Foundation

Conclusion

In South Africa, as EPR regulations develop, it’s important that stakeholders in fashion work together to develop appropriate localised and circular solutions for the fashion system and EPR. The circular economy holds the potential to transform the fashion industry into one that prioritises sustainability and ethics, without compromising the success of trade and business.

 

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