Disposable fashion in the collection container Fast fashion puts textile recyclers under pressure

Fast and ultra-fast fashion are overtaxing textile collection companies: The volume is increasing, the value of the collected goods is falling and cheap fashion is difficult to recycle. Texaid and Tell-Tex are struggling to cover their costs.

How many items of clothing have you bought since the beginning of the year and how many have you put in the clothing collection? If you correspond to the Swiss average, it would have to be over 3 kilograms. According to a report by the Federal Council, around 7 kilograms of clothing per capita end up in the used clothing collection every year in Switzerland. In total, this amounts to more than 60,000 tons. Twenty years ago, the figure was just over 40,000, as the report states. The Federal Council commissioned the report in response to a postulate from former National Councillor Roger Nordmann (SP/VD).

Fast fashion - cheap fashion that arrives in stores in rapid succession - has played a significant role in the growth of the amount collected. And apparently ends up in the garment bag just as quickly. Only to be overtaken by ultra fast fashion. Brands like Shein have shortened the time from perceived trend to product even further. And every new style means that the previous one is passé and has to go.

40 percent of this ends up as waste, while 60 percent goes to the various clothing collections. The heavyweights in this area are Texaid and Tell-Tex, which receive 50 and 34 percent of the textiles handed in throughout Switzerland respectively. They operate collection containers, which they empty regularly, and distribute plastic bags into which people pack their textiles. Or rather: they have distributed bags. But more on that later.

From their interim storage facilities, the loads of clothes go directly abroad, where they are sorted. "It would be far too expensive to have this work done in Switzerland," explains Sascha Sardella, Operations Manager at Tell-Tex.

Fast fashion devalues the collected textiles

The dimension of the discarded clothing can be grasped once again during transportation abroad: If the 60,000 tons were disposed of evenly throughout the year, it would be over 164 tons a day. That's an average of six to seven 40-ton trucks leaving Switzerland every day.

According to the federal report, 58 percent of the collected waste goes to Western Europe, 37 percent to Eastern Europe and 2 percent is sorted in Switzerland. The remaining 3 percent goes to the "rest of the world", as the report states.

Texaid maintains a sorting center in Schattdorf UR, where, according to the company, 30 percent of the textiles collected in Switzerland are separated "from obvious waste" and also taken out of the country for fine sorting. The company has its own sorting centers in Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria. However, after pre-sorting, some of the collected goods go directly to buyers who process them further.

Tell-Tex sells the textile packages by the ton to buyers who sort them and in turn resell some as clothing and the rest as textile recycling goods.

And this is where the increasing proportion of fast fashion becomes a problem for the first time: Sardella explains why: "The quality has been falling for years. That's why buyers are paying less for the collected clothes." This makes it more difficult for the collection companies to cover their collection and transportation costs. What's more, the declining quality has forced sorting companies to give up. "Those that remain dictate the price, and it's falling," explains the Tell-Tex operations manager.

Texaid has the same problem. Their spokesperson Chantal Thiévent adds that they are also increasingly finding waste of all kinds in their collection containers, which further reduces the value of the collected goods. She points out that the aim is actually to recycle as many clothes as possible.

Cheap synthetic fibers make recycling impossible

According to the federal report, around 60 percent of the clothes collected can still be worn and end up on second-hand markets all over the world. There, they are now also competing with Chinese fast fashion, as Thiévent adds: "This makes the sale of second-hand fashion more difficult or even impossible."

The other 40 percent is either torn up by machine and turned into cleaning rags or recycled threads that are used as insulation. Fast fashion brings with it another problem: these garments are often made from inferior blended fabrics. "If polyester is added to cotton, it is currently practically impossible to recycle," explains Sardella.

The only option then is thermal recycling. In plain language: the often not-so-old clothes are incinerated and the heat is used for heating or industrial processes. Collecting textiles, transporting them hundreds of kilometers, sorting them and finally incinerating them is not a profitable business. And it doesn't make ecological sense either.

Twenty years ago, the prices for used textiles were three times as high as they are today, says Sardella. In the meantime, not only has the quality fallen, but the quantity has also increased to such an extent that there is an oversupply, which further depresses prices. Tell-Tex reacts to this in the short term by keeping collected textiles in Switzerland until prices recover somewhat.

Municipalities collect fees for collecting textiles

In spring, when people are cleaning out their closets, prices are particularly low. "We currently have 500 tons of textiles in our warehouses in Switzerland," reveals Sardella. Storing them also causes costs and his employer would save money if he had them incinerated in Switzerland, he emphasizes, "But that's not the purpose of our company."

It is also clear to the used textile specialist that the collection companies will not be able to survive at current prices in the long term. Thiévent reports that Texaid's situation is not dramatic and that they will be able to continue their activities thanks to a number of measures.

For Sardella, it is clear that international prices will not rise to the necessary extent in the near future. He therefore draws attention to another cost: the textile collection companies have to pay concession fees in order to be allowed to accept clothes. "Without a concession, we would be guilty of illegal waste collection," he explains.

Chantal Thiévent refers to Texaid's social focus and notes that the declining income means that "concession fees, as well as charitable payments, can no longer be distributed to the same extent as in the past."

The fees for collecting textiles vary from canton to canton and from municipality to municipality. Sardella is proposing a radical change: Textile collectors should no longer have to pay, they should be paid. This would not only allow them to continue their activity, which is desirable for ecological reasons. They could also bring the sorting to Switzerland.

Advance disposal fee for clothes

This raises the question of where the money for used clothing collection should come from. "Textiles are the only material that is collected in Switzerland without public funding," emphasizes Sardella.

The federal government is proposing an advance fee, similar to the one charged for the disposal of electrical appliances. It outlines two options for this in the Federal Council's report: an advance recycling fee that would be collected and administered by the industry itself or an advance disposal fee that would be collected by the federal government.

The NGO Public Eye is also making a similar demand. It wants a fee that clothing manufacturers would have to pay - the more durable their products, the lower the fee. "Fast fashion business models will become less attractive," says Public Eye, hoping that this measure will help.

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Sardella from Tell-Tex refers to the Fabric Loop project. This project is looking for ways to strengthen textile recycling, for example by developing new technologies to sort old clothes and recycle materials that are no longer wearable.

Such a system can only be created if additional funds are available, for example by charging a fee. Sardella explains: "If you want to have sorting and recycling in Switzerland, money has to flow." With a view to the textile industry, he adds that it should not give too much at the expense of customers.

Sorting and recycling plant in St. Margrethen SG stopped

Fabric Loop is an initiative of the Swiss fashion industry. The industry emphasizes that it makes sense for it to oversee the development of such a system itself and manage the fees. "The industry knows its processes, products and logistics best - it can act faster, more practically and more cost-efficiently than a government-organized solution," explains Patrik Geisselhardt from the Fabric Loop association. The federal government should only set the targets, as is the case with PET and electrical appliance recycling, for example.

Tell-Tex started building its own sorting and recycling plant in St. Margrethen SG a few years ago. Some of the collected clothing would then no longer be exported, but either prepared for reuse or recycled there.

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The plant was due to go into operation in 2026. The company has since had to halt construction. The dwindling profits are one reason for this, but just as important: Tell-Tex is the official collection organization in the city of Zurich. It is now putting the textile collection out to tender again for 2026.

Because it is not clear whether Tell-Tex will continue to receive the approximately 2,000 tons of used clothing from the city of Zurich in the future, it is putting the project on hold. Tell-Tex is also negotiating new contracts with other municipalities. Sardella is certain: "Under the current market conditions, the Swiss textile collection system can be maintained for another one to two years. We are already investing in it."

The company has already responded to the cost pressure by no longer distributing garment bags. They would have produced 4 million bags a year, sent them out and put them in the dispensers at the containers. "The production alone cost 600,000 francs per year," explains Sardella.

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Gigantic mountains of textile waste in Ghana and Chile

What it means when the mass of discarded clothing gets out of control can be seen on the West African coast and in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

In Ghana, the textile bales end up in the Kantamanto market, two thirds of which burned down on January 1, 2025. Even before then, however, an increasing proportion of the clothes delivered from Europe, China and the USA went to unattended landfills. According to a local social entrepreneur in a Public Eye publication, 100 million items of clothing are delivered to Ghana alone every year, half of which end up in landfill.

The other example is the town of Alto Hospicio in Chile. Up to 20 tons of old clothes are dumped here - every day. The mountain of textiles is now so gigantic that it can be seen on satellite images. The strong presence of fast and ultra-fast fashion is doing its part to ensure that the fabric does not degrade.