The Textile Circularity Data Index

What this page compiles

This page compiles the public statistics on European textile waste, recycling economics and job creation into one sourced reference: how much Germany collects, where the material goes, what fibre to fibre recycling costs and earns, and what reuse does for employment. Every figure names its original public source and is updated in place.

The numbers come from named, dated public reports: a trade association survey, a national statistics office, an industry study, a sector federation. None of it is TexFile's own operating data, and when a source publishes a newer figure this page changes rather than sitting beside a superseded one.

How much used textile Germany collects

German collectors handle around 1.3 million tonnes of used textiles a year across all channels, sorted into as many as 350 fractions, according to the bvse Alttextilstudie. The narrower Destatis measure, household textile waste collected mostly by public waste authorities, was about 175,000 tonnes in 2023, up 55% in a decade.

The two figures measure different scopes, and both are useful. The bvse, Germany's recycling trade association, counts total collection across charity, commercial and municipal channels. Destatis, the federal statistics office, tracks the household slice: about 112,700 tonnes in 2013, a pandemic era peak of around 187,000 tonnes in 2020, and about two kilograms per person in 2023.

What happens to the material once it is collected

For Germany, the bvse Alttextilstudie puts the split of collected tonnage at 62% reused as second hand clothing and 37% downcycled or burned. Worldwide, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation finds less than 1% of the material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing. The two figures measure different denominators.

Downcycling turns garments into wiping cloths, insulation and similar lower value products; burning recovers only energy. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation values the fibre to fibre loss at more than 100 billion US dollars a year. The flow stays smallest under either measure not because the material is unsuitable, but because almost none of it carries the composition and origin data a recycler needs to sort it with confidence.

What fibre to fibre recycling is worth

Sorting a kilogram of post consumer textile costs around 0.68 euro, according to Fashion for Good's Sorting for Circularity Europe study. Diverting that material toward fibre to fibre recycling raises average sales income from about 0.12 euro per kilogram to at least 0.23 euro in a closed loop scenario: a net increase of 0.11 euro per kilogram.

The gap between what sorting costs and what a well matched fraction sells for is the margin the whole economics of textile recycling has to close, and it closes only where the fraction can be evidenced well enough to sell into the higher value route.

What reuse and recycling do for jobs

Reuse creates roughly 70 jobs per 1,000 tonnes of goods collected for reuse, against 3 to 4 jobs per 1,000 tonnes of material sent for recycling, according to RREUSE, the European network of social enterprises in reuse and recycling, in a report published in November 2025.

The gap is large because reuse is labour intensive, running on sorting, grading, repair and resale, where recycling is largely mechanical. It is also a reason the waste hierarchy places reuse above recycling: the same tonne of material supports a different amount of local employment depending on which route it takes.

The regulation timeline, as a citable chart

The chart below draws the EU and German textile regulation milestones to scale by date, reached ones filled in, upcoming ones outlined. It is also published as a small, free, embeddable widget for course pages, explainer articles and resource lists elsewhere, on the condition of a visible attribution link back to this page.

Common questions