GTGC Lunch Seminar: Governing the European Textile Waste Export
On Monday 4 December 2023, the GTGC Seed Grant project with Glenn Aguilar Hernandez, Elena Bondarouk, Arjan de Koning, Antonella Maiello, and Daniela Vicherat Mattar presented their reseach 'Flaws in the flow. Investigating gaps in the governance of European textile waste export'.
About the Research
Around 90% of the EU used or wasted textile is exported towards lower-income countries (Brink et al., 2021; EEA, 2023). Much of this exported textile is either burned or dumped (Afvalcirculair, 2017) and the amount that is truly reused or recycled is uncertain. What happens with second-hand garments and textile waste has not been researched systematically and not yet from an interdisciplinary perspective. Material flow research already flagged the waste impact of the EU textile sector. However, there is a lack of data and knowledge about how this cross-country waste chain can be governed.