Collecting and recycling textiles (UPV)
Are you a producer, importer, or foreign supplier of clothing and household textiles in the Netherlands? You have Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR, or Uitgebreide Producentenverantwoordelijkheid, UPV) for the products you bring to market. You are responsible for your products when they are discarded and you must organise and fund the waste management of these products.
Other parties in the sales or waste chain may also have responsibilities, such as distributors, including retail. If you are a foreign producer supplying directly to consumers, you must appoint an authorised representative in the Netherlands.
The extended producer responsibility for textiles applies to (in Dutch):
- clothing, including work and industrial clothing
- bed and table linen
- household linen, such as (hand) towels and tea towel
The EPR does not apply to sellers of second-hand textile products.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for textiles
Does the EPR for textiles apply to you? Then you must make sure that:
- discarded products are collected with a suitable collection system that is free to use
- discarded products are recycled for use in the production of new textile products whenever possible
- discarded products are processed using the most sustainable technologies if reusing is impossible
- you inform your customers about your collection system and where they can discard their textile products
You can collect, reuse, or process discarded textile products independently, or you can join an organisation of producers.
Targets for reuse and recycling
The minimum threshold for the reuse and recycling of textile products will increase over time:
- By 2025 you must prepare 50% of the previous year’s total weight sold for reuse or recycling. This number will increase by 5% each year until 2030 (75%).
- By 2025 you must reuse at least 20% of the textile products you collect. This number will increase by 1% each year until 2030 (25%).
- By 2025 you must reuse at least 10% of the textile products you collect for products you will sell in the Netherlands. This number will increase by 1% each year until 2030 (15%).
- By 2025 you must reuse 25% of all textile fibres from discarded textile products in materials for new products (fibre-to-fibre recycling). By 2030 this must be 33% of all textile fibres.
Annual reporting
If the extended producer responsibility for textiles applies to you, you must report to Rijkswaterstaat (in Dutch) each year before 1 August. In this report you state the number of products you brought to market in the previous year and which measures you take to meet your EPR.