Efforts to increase the recycling of clothes are in the works in Greece as several entities band together to fight the ever-increasing fashion waste in the country.
Currently, 15-20% of textile products are recycled in Greece, with the rest being either tossed in a landfill or burned.
Nevertheless, clothing companies are currently in collaboration with the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Hellenic Recycling Agency (HRA) to boost a circular economy in the fashion industry by developing ways to reuse discarded clothing and textiles in various forms.
The clothing sector is the fourth largest polluter of the environment worldwide with 92 million tons of waste being produced annually around the world. This figure is expected to increase by 60% come 2030, given that clothes are used for an increasingly shorter period of time before being thrown away. In stark contrast, the global recycling rate falls short of 1%.
Effective waste management is the first step towards establishing a circular economy, where most, if not all, textile products and materials will be recycled and reused repeatedly. However, significant investment is needed to accomplish such a feat as among other issues, textile recycling is much more complex as clothes are usually made up of different materials that need to be processed differently.
