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Since 2020, the share of people who put unwanted clothes, shoes and home textiles in special textile sorting containers has increased by 12 percentage points - from 21% to 33% - according to a survey* on people's clothing consumption and sorting habits conducted this year as part of the LIFE Waste To Resources IP, LIFE20 IPE/LV/000014 project. The increase in activity should be related to the fact that in recent years work has started on the creation of a textile sorting infrastructure and the deployment of suitable sorting containers. At the same time, 71% of respondents indicated that they would be more active in sorting textiles if sorting containers were available close to where they live. This in turn shows that infrastructure is still insufficient and needs further development.     

Kaspars Zakulis, Director of Latvijas Zaļais punkts: "Looking at people's waste sorting habits over the last 20 years, we can see that both the available infrastructure for separate waste collection and general public awareness contribute to their motivation to sort. Textile collection is still relatively new in Latvia, but over the last three years we have put significant efforts to make it more accessible to the population. According to a survey carried out earlier this year, the share of the population that throws textiles in household waste has dropped from 35% in 2020 to 25% this year. This means that the placement of containers, information campaigns and close cooperation with partners are already yielding results - less textiles are ending up in landfill, which we are very pleased about."

The most common actions people take with unwanted textiles in the survey include using them on the household (62%), donating them to charity (48%), giving them to friends or relatives (44%) and sorting them in special containers (33%). This shows that public knowledge is improving, people are becoming more responsible and trying to reduce waste through their own actions.

According to the survey, public awareness of textile sorting has increased significantly since last year. While last year's survey showed that 53% of respondents cited not knowing where to put their unwanted clothes as a reason for not sorting, this year, this indicator is much lower with 43% of respondents. However, this year, there was also still high share of the public (38%) said that collection points were far away or difficult to access (37% in 2021), which shows that people are becoming more aware and willing to sort, but that accessible sorting infrastructure is essential. 

The European Union has set a deadline of 2025 for its Member States to set up a textile sorting system, while in Latvia it will be operational from 2023. The survey concludes that 91% of respondents support the introduction of such a system in Latvia.

As Ms Rudīte Vesere, Director of the Environmental Management Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (hereinafter referred to as - MEPRD), pointed out in the seminar on the implementation of the textile sorting system in Latvia on 3 November, specific solutions have already been prepared to make textile sorting accessible to all residents: "Development of the textile sorting system plays an important role in Latvia's overall move towards a circular economy model. We have also already developed a specific action model to ensure that development of a comprehensive textile sorting system in Latvia continues and that all municipalities have the infrastructure in place to collect, sort and recycle as much as possible. Our analysis shows that the most efficient, convenient and win-win solution would be to extend the principles of the producer responsibility system to textile traders, by making them responsible for the volumes they place on the market and paying the natural resource tax or contracting with a producer responsibility scheme.” ”

Mr Jānis Aizbalts, Chairman of the Board of the LLC (SIA) “Eco Baltia vide”: “Over the past three years, together with the Latvijas Zaļais punkts, we have invested substantially in the research and implementation of a textile sorting system in Latvia. We have ascertained that people are willing to sort their unwanted clothes and take them to the special separate collection points. Last year, residents put into our 120 special containers more than 1,000 tonnes of clothes, shoes and home textiles. However, this number of containers is certainly not sufficient to ensure that people in every municipality in Latvia have the opportunity to dispose of their excess clothing and other textiles in an environmentally friendly way. The number of containers must continue to grow and textiles must also be allowed to re-circulate instead of going to landfill."

Textiles – clothes, shoes, home textiles, accessories thrown away in household waste – account for 3–5% of the waste sent to landfills every year. At the same time, 27,000 tonnes of new and second-hand clothing or 14.3 kg of clothing per capita enter the Latvian market on annual basis. It is important to note that textile production uses around 3,500 chemicals, 750 of which are classified as hazardous to human health and 440 as hazardous to the environment. Synthetic fibres, which make up 60% of textiles, take around 200 years to decompose. This means that chemicals start spreading into the environment over time, and textiles continue increasing the mountain of landfills. The aim of introducing a textile sorting system in EU countries is to reduce textile waste and the environmental impact of the fashion industry, and to encourage the collection, sorting and recycling of textile waste.

The population survey "Assessment of consumers' textile sorting habits" was carried out within the framework of the LIFE programme’s integrated project “Waste to Resources Latvia - Boosting Regional Sustainability and Circularity by Introducing the Waste to Resources Concept” (LIFE Waste To Resources IP, LIFE20 IPE/LV/000014) from 30 June to 7 July, surveying a total of 1,029 Latvian residents aged 18-75 years. The online survey was conducted by Forta Research.

The survey is available here.