There will be a ROP for textiles. European Parliament in favour of revision of the waste directive

9 September 2025. The European Parliament has adopted new legislation aimed at reducing the amount of textile waste generated across the EU. The amendment to the Waste Directive 2008/58/EC obliges all Member States to implement a textile ROP system within 30 months of the regulation coming into force.

Extended liability for textile producers getting closer

Soon, all businesses placing textiles and footwear on the EU market will be obliged to bear the costs of collecting them separately, sorting them, preparing them for re-use and recycling them. Adopted by the European Parliament the revision of Waste Directive 2008/98/EC will introduce an obligation to establish a Community-wide ROP system for textiles.

The content of the act had been agreed with the EU Council a few months earlier. Both legislative bodies will have to sign off the new directive before it is published in the Official Journal of the European Union. From the date of entry into force of the new legislation, Member States will have 20 months to transpose it and an additional 10 months (i.e. a total of 2.5 years) to put the ROP systems in place for textiles.

Under the terms of the amendment, companies bringing in textiles and footwear will bear the costs of separate collection, sorting, preparing for reuse and recycling of textile and footwear waste. As EU projections indicate, the majority of financial contributions from producers will go towards waste prevention and preparing for re-use.

Who will be covered by the ROP for textiles? Personal scope of extended producer responsibility

The obligations arising from the ROP will include all manufacturers of textile products, products incorporating textile materials and footwear products. In the absence of previous regulations, the amendment to the Waste Directive will introduce a definition of such a producer.

Any manufacturer, importer, distributor or other natural or legal person who:

• manufactures textiles or footwear under its own name,
• commissions the design or manufacture of textiles or footwear and markets them under its own name,
• resells textiles or footwear manufactured by another entity and not bearing a name or trademark,
• sells textiles and footwear directly to end users through distance contracts.

The Directive allows Member States to set up ROP systems also with regard to mattresses. However, the following will be excluded from the ROP obligations: self-employed tailors producing customised textiles, introducing second-hand, repaired, upcycled textiles, etc., and producers of textile products made from textile waste.

New responsibilities and new players - ROP for textiles will create space for new producer responsibility organisations to operate

Producers covered by the textile ROP scheme will be able to fulfil their obligations through a producer responsibility organisation. The revision of the Waste Directive allows for multiple organisations (also state-owned) in a single Member State.

The preamble of the amendment clearly states:

"Member States are encouraged to consider allowing multiple producer responsibility organisations as competition between them can benefit consumers, increase innovation, reduce costs, improve the separate collection of textiles and provide producers with a greater choice of operators with whom to contract."

The main task of the producer responsibility organisation will be to setting up textile waste collection and management systems. The amendment defines this activity as:

organising financially or financially and operationally the fulfilment of extended producer responsibility obligations.

In addition organisations will be able to take over the information obligations imposed on textile producers, which include the provision of information and information campaigns on sustainable consumption, waste prevention, reuse, preparation for reuse, including repair, recycling, other recovery and disposal of textile and footwear waste. Thus, it appears that the ROP will solve numerous problems for municipalities and their residents related to mandatory separate collection of textiles.

Importantly, producers or organisations will not have to reach the collection, preparation for re-use or recycling percentagesThe amendment stipulates that by the end of 2029, the European Commission may set targets for the prevention, collection, preparation for re-use and recycling of textile waste.

See also: Contemporary challenges in textile recycling - an interview with Barbara Kądziela from WWF Poland >>

Ecomodulation of charges in the ROP for textiles

The proposed ROP scheme provides for the introduction of eco-modulation of charges, which will give preference to manufacturers producing high quality textiles. Fees are to be modulated according to a product's environmental impact, recyclability, durability, presence of hazardous substances and recycled content.

The detailed criteria for setting product charge rates for textiles will be specified in Commission implementing acts. However, it is known that they will be adapted to the product category and the state of the art. As noted in the EP press release, When setting the level of charges, Member States should also take into account the phenomena of fast fashion and ultra fast fashion.

Producers will pay the ROP fees to producer responsibility organisations operating in the Member State into which the producer introduces its textiles. As the EU points out, this is because it is in that country that textile products are likely to become waste. At the same time, the directive implies the creation of mechanisms to prevent the charging of fees for textiles for which the producer has already paid fees in another Member State.

Why textiles? Motives for establishing a ROP scheme for textiles and footwear

In the preamble to the amendment the textile sector has been identified as one of the most resource-intensive with negative environmental impacts. EU authorities have also pointed out that companies in the sector often fail to comply with waste management rules and the waste hierarchy, which puts waste prevention first.

Read also: Polish fashion e-commerce drowns in plastic bag waste >>

Currently most textiles are not designed with recycling and circularity in mind, and as much as 78% requires separation of raw materials before processing. As a result less than 1% of the 12.6 million tonnes of clothing waste is recycled generated each year in the EU. The aim of the amendment is to create an economy based on collection, sorting, reuse, preparation for reuse and recycling, in particular fibre-to-fibre recycling. fiber-to-fiber), as well as encouraging manufacturers to design textiles and footwear in line with circularity principles.

Sources:

1. Parliament adopts new EU rules to reduce food and textile waste, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/pl/press-room/20250905IPR30172/parlament-przyjmuje-przepisy-ue-o-ograniczeniu-marnowania-zywnosci-i-tekstyliow
2. Content of the Directive adopted: https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6978-2025-REV-2/pl/pdf