Producer Responsibility for Textiles

Extended producer responsibility for textiles means that whoever places textiles on the market is responsible for the product even after it becomes waste. You finance and ensure that the products you sell are collected, sorted, and recycled. This principle is known as “the polluter pays” and is often referred to as EPR, short for “extended producer responsibility.” It has previously been in place for items such as packaging, electronics, and batteries, and is now being introduced for textiles as well through the EU Waste Directive.

A producer responsibility organization, often abbreviated as PRO, handles the practical aspects of your producer responsibility. It ensures that collection, sorting, and recycling take place, compiles your volumes and results, and reports to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, which is the responsible authority. You join the organization and fund its work through fees, while the organization handles implementation and represents you in dealings with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

If you place clothing, shoes, or home textiles on the Swedish market, your company must comply with producer responsibility requirements for textiles. The rules apply to anyone who manufactures, imports, or sells such products in Sweden, regardless of where you are in the supply chain. The requirements will take effect no later than April 17, 2028, and for micro-enterprises with fewer than 10 employees and a turnover of no more than 2 million euros, they will take effect on April 17, 2029. You can start complying even before then, using the collection and recycling systems currently available in Sweden.

Yes. The rules apply to everyone who supplies textiles to the Swedish market. This includes manufacturers with production facilities in Sweden or abroad, importers who place textiles on the Swedish market, as well as retailers and e-commerce businesses. The goal is to ensure equivalent rules for all sellers.

Clothing, footwear, and home textiles are covered, as are certain furniture textiles such as curtains and blankets. See the complete list in Annex IVc of the directive. If you’re unsure where your product line falls, we’d be happy to review it with you.

Shoes are subject to the same rules as clothing, even though they are rarely mentioned in discussions about textiles; therefore, if you sell shoes, producer responsibility applies to you.

The requirements will take effect no later than April 17, 2028, by which time the national system must be in place. Prior to that, Swedish legislation must be enacted by June 2027 at the latest, and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency will present its proposal in the fall of 2026. Micro-enterprises will be covered by April 17, 2029, at the latest.

Producer responsibility is a legal requirement. Under the EU Waste Directive, producers must fulfill their responsibilities by engaging a producer responsibility organization, and a competent authority oversees compliance. This is already how it works for established producer responsibility schemes, such as packaging, where the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency serves as the supervisory authority. The specific details of how the Swedish system for textiles will be designed are being determined as part of the ongoing work at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

Yes, it’s up to you to choose which organization you use to fulfill your producer responsibility. A producer responsibility organization handles collection, sorting, recycling, and reporting on your behalf. TMR has been managing producer responsibility for packaging since 2005, always with the individual producer in focus, and is now developing a service offering for textiles. If you’d like to know what a partnership might look like, please feel free to contact us.

The cost is based on how much textile you place on the market, not on the size of your company. You can already fulfill your producer responsibility through us, and we’ll go over what that means for you based on your volumes. What you’re paying for is the collection, sorting, recycling, and reporting of textiles through the partnerships that are already in place. The fees will be adjusted as the system and the market evolve.

Yes. The infrastructure for collection, sorting, and recycling is already in place in Sweden. Through the TMR- Gruppen’s established partnerships, textiles can be managed right away. You sign up, and we’ll handle collection, recycling, and reporting for you.

The requirements will come regardless. The difference lies in whether you meet them prepared or under time pressure. Those who wait will have to make changes to materials and design, connectivity, and reporting at the same time as the rest of the industry, against a fixed deadline. If you start now, the transition will happen gradually and at your own pace, using the collection and recycling systems already in place in Sweden. You’ll also have time to adapt your products before the fees are implemented, since the directive stipulates that the fees will be based on how sustainable and recyclable the products are. And perhaps most importantly: your consumers will see that you’re taking real, documented responsibility.

Schedule an initial meeting with us. We’ll review where you stand in relation to the requirements, which parts of your product range are covered, and what producer responsibility might look like for your specific business. It’s free of charge and there’s no obligation.