What Australia can learn from the Netherlands to tackle its textile waste
Joanne Howarth
Global scale. Local opportunity. Understanding how circular textile systems are being built and what it will take for Australia to capture the value.
With supply chains spanning countries and providing livelihood to more than 300 million people worldwide, the textile sector’s contribution to the global economy is significant. At the same time, its take-make-waste model generates enough waste to fill over 200 Olympic-sized stadiums. This alarming statistic also points to a major opportunity to unlock value from waste.
In most countries, clothing waste is still treated as a landfill problem, even though it takes decades to centuries to break down. However, in one country, policy, infrastructure, and industry have aligned to spin textile waste into a valuable resource. In this article, I explore the Netherlands’ rapidly accelerating circular textile transition and lessons Australia can draw from it.
Australia’s textile waste problem
Every year, Australia dumps around 300,000 tonnes of textiles in landfill or ships them overseas. Globally, this linear system of extracting virgin materials, manufacturing clothes, and discarding them represents an estimated $500 billion in lost value. With per capita textile consumption surpassing even that of the U.S., and a dismally low recycling rate of 7%, Australia’s share of its lost value is staggering.
The losses aren’t limited to materials alone. They also include missed opportunities to create domestic manufacturing value and local jobs. Much of this value could be recaptured by shifting from a linear textile system to a circular one. But for that to happen, systemic changes are required. To understand what those are, let’s turn to the Netherlands.
Case study: The Netherlands
The Netherlands’ position as a global frontrunner in circularity didn’t happen by chance. It was carefully cultivated through strong policy measures and deep collaboration among industry, government, and innovators.
Policy-driven systemic changes
The Dutch government aims to achieve a fully circular economy by 2050, and a circular, fossil-free, and socially responsible textile value chain is a critical enabler of that goal. To kickstart the transition, the government introduced the Circular Textile Policy Program 2020-25, making the Netherlands one of the first countries to adopt a dedicated policy program for textiles. This was followed by a second textiles policy program for 2025-30. The policy measures include reuse and recycling targets, keeping overproduction and overconsumption in check, and implementing circular design principles.
The Dutch agenda to increase textile circularity gained more momentum in 2023 with the introduction of the EU-backed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Under this scheme, textile producers are held operationally and financially responsible for the collection, reuse, recycling, and end-of-life treatment of their products.
Together with the national policy, EPR is reshaping how textiles are collected, tracked, and reintegrated into material streams.
Robust waste management infrastructure
Keeping textile waste from becoming landfill or incinerator fodder requires a robust collection and sorting system. This is another area where the Netherlands leads. The country boasts a separate textile collection rate of 47% and a textile sorting capacity of 97%.
Corporate innovation turning textile waste into new fibres
Innovation has played a central role in the Netherlands’ 32.7% circularity rate, which far exceeds the global average. Here are two Dutch companies that show what’s possible when policy, industry, and innovation align.
SaXcell
This Dutch fibre tech company uses cutting-edge technology to convert post-consumer and post-industrial cotton waste into regenerated cellulose fibre. These fibres can replace virgin cotton and unsustainable synthetic materials in textile supply chains. A recent $4 million funding will help the company scale up its operations, bringing it closer to achieving its goal of turning hundreds of old cotton into high-quality fibres each year.
Brightfiber Textiles
Based in Amsterdam, Brightfiber Textiles is a 100% circular textile producer. It uses advanced technologies, such as near-infrared (NIR) sorters, to sort and convert locally sourced used textiles into high-quality fibres. What’s more, the entire process is closed loop, retaining both colours and fibres from the original material.
What Australia can learn
With a roughly 4% national circularity rate, Australia’s contrast with the Netherlands is stark. A simple comparison with the Netherlands reveals structural gaps in how the two manage their textile waste.
In Australia, progress toward circularity is hindered by largely manual material recovery facilities that are not nearly enough in number to sort the enormous volume of textile waste. Much of this waste ends up in landfills.
The policy landscape is another major factor. Australia lacks a dedicated national policy on textile circularity and mandatory schemes. This means there aren’t enough economic or regulatory incentives for industry stakeholders to invest in circular innovation and scale infrastructure.
Company proof point: Planet Protector
Planet Protector is proof that the Dutch approach of turning textile waste into manufacturing input is already in place in Australia. But at a facility level. We take post-industrial denim waste and offcuts convert them into high-performance insulation, while waste wool is converted into sustainable packaging that can replace toxic polystyrene in food and pharma supply chains.
Every stage of the fibre-to-fibre processing takes place at our fibre processing plant in Victoria, currently the only one of its kind in Australia.
In other words, Australia doesn’t lack raw material or innovative companies. What we lack is a national system that encourages weaving this waste into worth.
The textile waste crisis is growing
While overproduction and overconsumption must be tackled, waste itself is clearly not the problem. Other countries have already shown that the circular textile model works. Australia has the raw material (textile waste) and innovation capabilities. What’s holding us back is the lack of national systems to support the transition.
As we move into 2026, let’s remember that building circularity isn’t something Australia can put off anymore. It needs to happen today, not someday.