BERLIN – A study of the German clothing market suggests 10 to 20 per cent of clothing items remain unsold despite the best efforts of retailers, including heavy discounting. The unsold garments – of which there are an estimated 230 million pieces – end up in recycling and waste incineration plants or being sold onto the second hand market in countries outside the EU. The findings were published in Welt and are based on statistics from market research firm Euromonitor International.
The study coincides with the release of a new report by Circle-Economy which claims that in North-West Europe (NWE) 4,700 kilo tonnes of post-consumer textile waste (PCT) is generated annually. The same report also claims that less than 1 per cent of textiles collected are currently recycled into new ones, and around half of them are being downcycled, incinerated or landfilled.
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