EPR for textiles, and combatting food waste | In Principle

The amendment to the Waste Framework Directive extending the responsibility of producers of textile products, and also setting targets for reducing food waste, enters into force on 16 October 2025. Poland will have until 17 June 2027 to implement the new provisions. But businesses need to be prepared even earlier.

The reasons for the changes

The European Commission released its proposal to amend the Waste Framework Directive on 5 July 2023, as we discussed in the article “The end of fast fashion? New regulations will soon cover textiles.” This was a response to the problem identified by EU institutions of the growing quantities of textile waste and food waste. According to the data presented by the Commission, nearly 60 million tonnes of food waste is generated in the EU each year, and over 12 million tonnes of textile waste. And as the European Environment Agency points out, less than 1% of textile waste is recycled.

Work on the new provisions wrapped up on 9 September 2025, when the European Parliament formally passed Directive (EU) 2025/1892 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 September 2025 amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste. Poland has nearly two years to implement the new rules, but interested businesses should prepare now for their new obligations.

Extended producer responsibility

The concept behind extended producer responsibility (ERP) is that manufacturers should bear responsibility for the full life cycle of their products. In practice this means increasing the costs not only of production as such, but also for example of managing the waste generated by the product. The main aim of ERP is to reduce the harmful environmental impact of certain categories of products.

Under the new rules, producers of textile products will bear, among other things, the costs of:

• Collecting used and waste textile products, and further management of such waste
• Providing information, including via appropriate information campaigns, on sustainable consumption, waste prevention, reuse, preparing for reuse, including repair, recycling, other recovery and disposal of textiles
• Support for research and development to improve product design for product aspects listed in Art. 5 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation), and waste prevention and management operations in line with the waste hierarchy, with a view to scaling up fibre-to-fibre recycling, without prejudice to the EU’s state aid rules.

In addition, textile producers will have to obtain an entry in the relevant register of producers. Poland is required to establish such a register, and links to the registers in all member states will be posted by the Commission on one of its websites.

A key role in the EPR scheme for textiles will fall to producer responsibility organisations. Their tasks will include establishing a separate collection system for used and waste textile products, regardless of their nature, material composition, condition, name, brand, trademark or origin. An organisation may also assume other obligations of textile producers. It will be up to Polish lawmakers to decide whether to adopt a model with numerous producer responsibility organisations operating under conditions of market competition, or whether a single entity, such as the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW), will be responsible for operating the system.

The list of products covered by ERP is set forth in Annex IVc, and includes such items as:

• Articles of apparel and clothing accessories
• Blankets
• Various types of linens
• Curtains, drapes and interior blinds
• Hats and other headgear
• Various types of footwear, even when their main composition is not textile.

Poland will also have the option of including producers of mattresses in the EPR scheme.

The concept of a producer of textile products is defined as broadly as possible in the directive. In practice this means that the new obligations will apply not only to businesses operating in the EU, but also those based in a third country which sell textile products via distance contracts (e.g. online) directly to natural or legal persons in the EU.

Combating food waste

Under the new rules, the member states must take appropriate measures to prevent the generation of food waste along the entire food supply chain, in primary production, in processing and manufacturing, in retail and other distribution of food, in restaurants and food services as well as in households.

The list of measures which Poland will need to adopt includes at least:

• Developing and supporting behavioural change interventions to reduce food waste, and information campaigns to raise awareness about food waste prevention
• Identifying and addressing inefficiencies in the functioning of the food supply chain and supporting cooperation among all actors
• Encouraging food donation and other redistribution for human consumption, ensuring prioritisation of human use over animal feed and reprocessing into non-food products
• Supporting training and skills development as well as facilitating access to funding opportunities, in particular for SMEs and social economy entities
• Encouraging and promoting innovation and technological solutions which contribute to the prevention of food waste.

The directive also sets specific targets which Poland should achieve at the national level by 31 December 2030:

• Reduction of the generation of food waste in processing and manufacturing by 10% in comparison to the amount of food waste generated as an annual average between 2021 and 2023
• Reduction of the generation of food waste per capita, jointly in retail and other distribution of food, in restaurants and food services and in households, by 30% in comparison to the amount of food waste generated as an annual average between 2021 and 2023.

As of now, it remains an open question what means Polish lawmakers will use to achieve these targets. It may be assumed, however, that hitting the EU targets will entail new duties for businesses, for example in the area of reporting.

Summary

The changes to the Waste Framework Directive should not come as any surprise. Work on the amendment was ongoing for over two years, and the issues of combating food waste and reducing the quantities of textile waste were on the EU agenda for a long time. It should also be pointed out that the duty to separately collect textile waste, in force in Poland since 1 January 2025, arose out of the amendment to the Waste Framework Directive from 30 May 2018.

Businesses covered by the new rules should begin now to prepare for compliance with the new requirements. But it should also be remembered that the final shape of these duties will be determined by national lawmakers—without Polish implementing regulations it will not be possible to impose sanctions on Polish businesses for failure to carry out the rules in the EU directive.

Hopefully, Polish lawmakers will not wait until the last minute to implement the directive, and the measures they adopt will be proportionate to the aims they seek to achieve.

Karol Maćkowiak, Environment practice, Wardyński & Partners