Article 22d — Management of waste textiles

1. Member States shall ensure that the collection, loading and unloading, transportation and storage infrastructure as well as other operations including handling of used and waste textiles, and subsequent sorting and treatment processes, receive protection from adverse weather conditions and potential sources of contamination in order to prevent damage and cross-contamination of the collected used and waste textiles. Separately collected used and waste textile shall be subject to a professional screening at the separate collection point or the sorting facility to identify and remove non-target items or materials or substances that are potential sources of contamination. 2. Member States shall ensure that used and waste textile, textile-related and footwear products that are separately collected, including in accordance with Article 22c(8) and (11), are considered to be waste upon collection. With regard to textiles other than the products listed in Annex IVc, as well as discarded unsold textile, textile-related and footwear products listed in Annex IVc, Member States shall ensure that the different fractions of textiles materials and textiles items are kept separate at the point of waste generation where such separation facilitates subsequent re-use, preparing for re-use, or recycling, including fibre-to-fibre recycling where technological progress allows. That separation shall be carried out in a cost-efficient way to maximise resource recovery and environmental benefits. 3. By way of derogation from paragraph 2, used textile, textile-related and footwear products that are directly handed over by end users and directly professionally assessed as fit for re-use at the collection point by the re-use operator or social economy entities shall not be considered to be waste upon collection. 4. Member States shall ensure that used and waste textile, textile-related and footwear products that are separately collected, including in accordance with Article 22c(8) and (11), are subject to sorting operations to ensure the treatment in line with the waste hierarchy. 5. Member States shall ensure that sorting operations of used and waste textile, textile-related and footwear products that are separately collected, including in accordance with Article 22c(8) and (11), comply with the following requirements: (a) the sorting operation is to generate textile, textile-related and footwear products for re-use and preparing for re-use, prioritising local sorting, where appropriate, and local re-use; (b) the sorting-for-re-use operations sort textile, textile-related and footwear products at an appropriate level of granularity, allowing for item-to-item sorting which separates fractions that are fit for direct re-use from those that are to be subject to further preparing for re-use operations, and target a specific re-use market applying up-to-date sorting criteria relevant to the receiving market; (c) items that are assessed as not suitable for re-use are sorted for remanufacturing and recycling including, where technological progress allows, fibre-to-fibre recycling, with a view to prioritising remanufacturing over recycling; (d) the output of sorting and subsequent recovery operations destined for re-use meet the criteria for ceasing to be considered as waste, as referred to in Article 6. 6. By 1 January 2026 and every five years thereafter, Member States shall carry out a compositional survey of collected mixed municipal waste to determine the share of waste textile, textile-related and footwear products, where appropriate, in accordance with the CN codes referred to in Annex IVc. Member States shall ensure that, on the basis of the information obtained, the competent authorities may require the producer responsibility organisations to take corrective action to increase their network of collection points and carry out information campaigns in accordance with Article 22c(14) and (15). Member States shall ensure that the results of those surveys are available to the public. 7. Member States shall ensure that, in order to distinguish between used textile, textile-related and footwear products assessed as fit for re-use and waste textile, textile-related and footwear products, shipments of used textile, textile-related and footwear products assessed as fit for re-use suspected of being waste may be inspected by the competent authorities of Member States for compliance with the minimum requirements set out in paragraphs 8 and 9 for the shipments of used textile, textile-related and footwear products assessed as fit for re-use and monitored accordingly. 8. Member States shall ensure that shipments arranged on a professional basis of used textile, textile-related and footwear products assessed as fit for re-use comply with the minimum record-keeping requirements set out in paragraph 9 and are accompanied by at least the following information: (a) a copy of the invoice and contract relating to the sale or transfer of ownership of the textiles, textile-related and footwear products which states that they are destined for direct re-use and that they are fit for direct re-use; (b) evidence of a prior sorting operation or direct professional assessment as fit for re-use carried out in accordance with this Article and, where available, the criteria adopted pursuant to Article 6(2), in the form of a copy of the records on every bale within the consignment and a protocol containing all record information according to paragraph 9 of this Article; (c) a declaration made by the natural or legal person in possession of used textile, textile-related or footwear products assessed as fit for re-use that arranges, on a professional basis, the transport of used textile, textile-related and footwear products assessed as fit for re-use that none of the material within the consignment is waste as defined by Article 3(1). Member States shall ensure that the shipments referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph are appropriately protected against damage during transportation, loading and unloading, in particular, through sufficient packaging and appropriate stacking of the load, thereby maintaining the integrity and quality of the textiles for re-use throughout the transport process. 9. Member States shall ensure that shipments of used textile, textile-related and footwear products assessed as fit for re-use comply with the following minimum record-keeping requirements: (a) the record of the sorting, the direct professional assessment as fit for re-use or the preparing for re-use operations is fixed securely but not permanently on the packaging; (b) the record contains the following information: (i) a description of the item or items present in the bale reflecting the most detailed sorting granularity that the textile items have undergone during the sorting or preparing for re-use operations such as type of clothes, size, colour, gender, material composition, and any other relevant characteristics that contribute to efficient re-use; (ii) the name and address of the company responsible for the final sorting or preparing for re-use. 10. Member States shall ensure that, where the competent authorities or authorities involved in inspections establish that an intended shipment of used textile, textile-related and footwear products assessed as fit for re-use is suspected of being waste, the costs of appropriate analyses, inspections and storage of used textile, textile-related or footwear products assessed as fit for re-use suspected of being waste may be charged to the producers of textile, textile-related or footwear products listed in Annex IVc, to third parties acting on their behalf or to other persons arranging the shipment.

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Source: EUR-Lex CELLAR · retrieved 2026-08-09