Working together on circularity
What is Extended producer responsibility (EPR)
Inter alia, this legislation means that producers, sellers or importers of textiles:
- Must bear the full cost of the life cycle of their product.
- Must meet the targets set out in the EPR for selective collection, reuse and recycling.
- That the textile products must be produced in accordance with the rules of Design for recycling (DforR) and Design for circularity (RforC).
- Must specify the volume of textiles that is put on the market in Belgium.
- Must specify the quantity of ‘end-of-life’ professional textiles which is selectively collected and how this is processed (reuse, recycling, incineration).
- Must make available the necessary financial resources to meet these targets.
Which professional textiles are considered End-of-life (EoL)
Discarded textiles which have become dispensable for the owner. This can include clothing which is damaged, undamaged, contaminated or uncontaminated. It can be both post-consumer and pre-consumer.
About Professional and Consumer textiles
- Flat linen: Table, kitchen, bed and bath linen such as towels, flannels, sheets (used for beds or tables), pillowcases, rags,… used for both household and professional applications.
- Fashion apparel: Any clothing commercially available for sale or for rent for women, men, children & babies including lingerie, underwear and nightwear, casualwear, sportswear, mourning wear, bridal and party wear,…
- Workwear | Uniforms:Clothing provided to the employee by the employer (Code on welfare at work – book IX – title 3). The purpose of this clothing can take two forms, namely representativeness (with the company’s logo or name) and ensuring that the employee does not have to use his own clothing while performing his professional activity. These include shirts/ t-shirts/ trousers/ pulls/ vests/ jackets/ coats/ aprons/ overalls/ hats/ caps/ hats/ gloves/ fabric mouth masks for Covid … Workwear (without CE marking) differs, within Circletex, from protective clothing in that they are not covered by a product legislation such as PPE product legislation (personal protective equipment) or Medical Devices product legislation.
- Interior upholstery:Products commercially available such as curtains, over-curtains, inter-curtains, interior decoration, seat covers … which are used for both domestic and professional applications.
- Exterior products:Products commercially available such as awnings, tarpaulins, tents, flags, garden products … used for domestic as well as professional applications.
- Protective products with textiles:Personal protective equipment PPE, or Medical devices, products that protect the whole body or parts of the body against specific risks such as: fire, heat, hypothermia in water, cold, radioactivity, UV radiation, electricity and mechanical risks (cutting, impact of projectiles, …), chemical processes. These products are covered by specific product legislation such as the PPE Regulation (EU) 2016/425 or the Regulation (EU) 2017/745 Medical Devices.
Products used by law enforcement and armed forces do not legally fall under well-defined legislation but are considered textile protective products by Circletex.
What is meant by: Offering on the Belgian market
Offering (= selling, leasing, = giving away, etc.) textiles on the Belgian market for the very first time.
What are pre-consumer textiles?
Pre-consumer textile streams (manufacturing residues, unsold products, etc.)
What are post-consumer textiles?
Post-consumer textile (= textiles after consumption) streams (used products, end-of-life products, etc.)
What is textile recycling?
That is a mechanical, chemical or thermal treatment or a combination of certain treatments to use the material as a raw material for new products.
What is reuse?
This means the use of a previously used product or a part thereof for the originally intended purpose.
I want to become an operator (collector/sorter) myself, is that possible?
Yes, that is possible – please contact us and we get you started!
Exactly what does Circletex do with the data that companies are required to report via the annual declaration?
These are used to
- make a baseline measurement of the sector
- map the different textile flows (products containing textiles) placed on the market in Belgium
- determine possible objectives for selective collection, reuse, recycling
- identify how much ‘end-of-life’ textiles are selectively collected and how they are processed (reuse, recycling, incineration)
Circletex further commits to treat and have treated as strictly confidential any financial or commercial information entrusted to it by Circletex Participants.
When Circletex publishes information based on the data made available to it, it undertakes to do so in such a way that no financial or commercial information of individual participants can be derived from it.
This obligation of confidentiality does not affect any duty of disclosure that Circletex has or might have under any law or regulatory provision.
