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On 16 October 2025, the revised EU Waste Directive entered into force. It sets the overall framework for producer responsibility for textiles across the EU and establishes a common principle: whoever places a textile product on the market is responsible for its waste management when the product becomes waste.
In practice, this means that producers and importers must register, report volumes, and contribute to financing collection, sorting, and recycling.
As we know from other producer responsibility regimes, the directive also introduces environmental modulation for textiles, whereby producers pay lower contributions if their products are designed to last longer, are easier to recycle, or contain recycled materials. This makes producer responsibility a direct incentive for better product design.
France: 17 years of experience – and still going
France is the frontrunner. The organisation launched in 2007 and was significantly updated in 2020, when legislation prohibited the destruction of unsold goods and tightened requirements for labelling products’ recycled material content and microplastics. Today the organisation is managed by the PRO Refashion, to which 95% of the French market is affiliated – the remainder manage their producer responsibility individually.
France recently transitioned from a purely financial model for producer responsibility to a hybrid model, in which Refashion participates more actively in the management of textile waste rather than simply reimbursing costs.
The figures show a system that works, but which is still wrestling with the hardest part. France has achieved a recycling rate of 60% of collected and sorted material – well above the European average of 8%. However, the collection rate stands at 32% of textiles placed on the market, against a target of 60% by 2028. In 2023, Refashion collected 268,000 tonnes of the approximately 833,000 tonnes placed on the market that year.
France has also introduced a repair target: the number of repair actions must increase by 35% by 2028 compared to 2019. This is one of the more far-reaching elements of the French model and an example of how producer responsibility extends well beyond waste management alone.
The system has not been without challenges, however. Insufficient support for sorting and recycling businesses forced the French state to pump billions into the sector to keep the infrastructure alive. The French system is also built so that producers must report textiles in units, and the number of categories is very extensive.
The Netherlands: closest to Denmark’s situation
The Netherlands most closely resembles the system Denmark is working towards. Producer responsibility for textiles entered into force on 1 July 2023 and is still relatively new. Producers and importers must register with the authorities and, within six weeks of registration, report the volumes of textiles they place on the market by weight.
The organisation is administered by Stichting UPV Textiel, which in 2025 charged a preliminary environmental contribution of €0.20 per kilogram for newly registered producers. For companies already participating in 2024, the contribution was lower.
The Netherlands has set ambitious targets: 50% of textiles placed on the market must be prepared for reuse or recycled by 2025, rising to 75% by 2030. Of this, at least 25% must be prepared for reuse and 33% for fibre recycling. Half of the volume destined for reuse must be prepared for domestic reuse.
This is one of the most ambitious sets of targets in Europe, and an indication of the direction in which the EU’s forthcoming common targets are likely to move.
The Netherlands has chosen not to introduce labelling requirements as France has, and the system is not yet fully implemented. But it is the country that structurally resembles Denmark the most, and therefore the best reference point for what we can expect.
The Netherlands has also chosen to introduce producer responsibility for mattresses, which is optional under the Waste Framework Directive.
The key challenge: we lack infrastructure and collaboration
The experiences from France and the Netherlands show us that legislation alone is only the beginning.
France has had producer responsibility since 2007 and still only collects 32% of what is placed on the market. When ambitions were raised, the infrastructure was not robust enough to keep pace, and the state had to inject additional funding into the sector to keep sorting and recycling businesses operational.
The Netherlands has set some of Europe’s most ambitious targets, but acknowledges that capacity is not yet fully in place.
This is an important lesson: a producer responsibility organisation is only as good as the infrastructure it rests on. Collection and sorting are costly, and if the financing model is not robust from the outset, the system falters.
The solution requires investment, cross-border collaboration, and a willingness to engage in market development.
Read more about our experience with this kind of development work here, and what Danish companies can expect from producer responsibility right now.
What does this mean for you as a producer?
The European experiences all point in the same direction and offer three concrete lessons for Denmark.
Building infrastructure and changing consumer behaviour takes time. Even France, with 17 years of experience, is still struggling to get textile waste out of households and into the right channels. The earlier we start, the better our starting point.
The financing model is crucial. Collection and sorting are costly, and if the model is not robust from the outset, the system can falter. A collective organisation operating on a non-profit basis is the best starting point for keeping costs down over time.
It is possible to get up and running quickly. The Netherlands shows that a well-functioning collective organisation can be established in a relatively short time when industry and authorities pull in the same direction.
Producer responsibility is here to stay, and requirements will increase over time. The companies that sign up earliest have the opportunity to shape the organisation and avoid the most costly start-up mistakes. That is precisely the position Tekstilretur gives you in Denmark.
