THREADs: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Textile Waste Treatment Pathways

Textile waste is increasingly diverted from residual waste across the EU/EEA, driven by mandatory separate textile collection and forthcoming extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes. For municipalities in sparsely populated areas, this raises a practical question: which handling pathway for textile waste performs best environmentally.

This study was carried out for five partners in the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish parts of the Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) region, financed through Interreg NPA and Interreg Sverige-Norge: Trondheim
municipality, Remiks Miljøpark (Tromsø/Karlsøy), Åre municipality, Kiertokaari (Oulu region) and Lumire (Luleå). A common challenge across the five partners is low population density and long transport distances to sorting and treatment facilities, resulting in lower waste volumes than in urban areas. Together, the
partners' countries cover around 4 million inhabitants in the NPA area, generating an estimated 51 750 tonnes of textile waste per year.

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the environmental footprint of collecting, sorting and treating textile waste in these conditions, from collection to final fate, to support decision-making in the NPA region. The
study combines life cycle assessment (LCA), partner interviews, desk research, a mapping of the European textile recycling sector and cost estimations.