Used-clothing trade can support reuse and livelihoods, but circularity fails when poor-quality textiles are shifted to countries without the capacity to sort, recycle or safely dispose of them.
Europe’s used-textile trade has become a major test of whether fashion’s circular-economy claims are credible. In 2025, EU countries exported more than 1.44 million tonnes of used textiles, with Africa and Asia receiving the overwhelming majority. The trade can extend garment life, supply affordable clothing and support jobs in sorting, resale and recycling. But its environmental outcome depends on what arrives, where it goes next and who bears the cost of rejected material.
The classification gap
The central problem is not that every exported garment is waste. It is that customs codes and trade declarations do not reliably distinguish high-quality reusable clothing from damaged, contaminated or unsellable textiles.
The European Environment Agency notes that limited information exists on the quality of exported used textiles because there are no specific reporting requirements for textiles not classified as waste. This makes it difficult to establish how much material is reused, recycled, re-exported, dumped or burned after arrival.
For receiving countries, the risk is clear. Low-value or non-reusable garments can quickly become a municipal waste-management burden, particularly where sorting, recycling and controlled-disposal infrastructure is insufficient. The result is not circularity; it is a transfer of environmental liability.
Regulation moves closer to the border
European policy is beginning to address this gap. New EU rules require separately collected textiles to be sorted before possible shipment, reducing the scope for waste to be labelled as reusable goods. From May 2027, exporters of waste from the EU will also face stricter obligations to demonstrate that receiving facilities manage materials in an environmentally sound manner.
International controls may tighten further. The Basel Convention’s Open-ended Working Group considered used textiles and textile waste at its June 2026 meeting, including options to improve controls on cross-border movements.
The responsibility test
The practical standard should be simple: exporters, brands and collectors must prove that shipments are genuinely suitable for reuse or recycling at destination. That requires bale-level grading standards, documented reject rates, traceable destinations, verified receiving facilities and clear responsibility for non-reusable fractions.
The next phase of textile circularity will not be measured by tonnes collected or shipped. It will be measured by whether materials remain in productive use—and whether the organisation placing them on the market remains accountable when they do not.
