The European Parliament has approved new measures aimed at cutting food and textile waste across the bloc, marking a significant step in the EU’s wider waste-reduction strategy.
The legislation introduces binding national targets to curb food waste by 2030. Member states will be required to achieve a 10% reduction from food processing and manufacturing, and a 30% per capita cut from retail, hospitality, catering, and households, compared with the 2021–2023 baseline.
Countries must also ensure that businesses playing a major role in food waste prevention and generation make safe, unsold food available for donation. This provision was added at Parliament’s insistence to strengthen redistribution efforts.
In a parallel move, the law extends producer responsibility to the textile sector. Manufacturers placing textiles on the EU market will be obliged to finance the collection, sorting and recycling of products such as clothing, footwear, hats, bedding, and curtains.
New Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes will need to be operational in each member state within 30 months of the directive’s entry into force. Online sellers and non-EU firms will also fall within scope, while micro-enterprises will be granted an additional year to comply.
Member states may also apply the schemes to mattress producers and are encouraged to take fast-fashion and ultra-fast-fashion practices into account when determining financial contributions.
The law was deemed adopted following Parliament’s second reading, with the Council having already endorsed the position earlier this summer. It will now be formally signed by the co-legislators and published in the EU’s Official Journal. Member states will then have 20 months to transpose the rules into national legislation.
The Commission first proposed revising the EU’s waste rules in July 2023 to address mounting food and textile waste. The EU generates nearly 60 million tonnes of food waste each year – an average of 132 kilograms per person – and 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste, of which clothing and footwear account for 5.2 million tonnes. Globally, less than 1% of textiles are recycled into new products.
The reforms seek to cut this waste burden and push producers and consumers alike towards a more sustainable model of consumption.
