Partner event

Webinar series: Circular textiles in cities

  • 28 April 2021

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Cities Programme would like to invite you to a four-part webinar series that will focus on textiles collection in cities.

We know that textiles collection, reuse, and recycling is a hot topic for the cities we engage with.

If instead of incineration or landfill, these materials were captured and recirculated, the lost value of textile waste amounting to more than USD 100 billion annually could be retained, whilst new jobs in collection, sorting and recycling facilities could be created. Increased collection, sorting and recycling rates of textiles could also lower the waste management costs associated with disposal. So the economic and environmental benefits of building systems for increased textiles circulation are significant globally.

In addition to this, in the EU, the 2018 amendment of the EU Waste Framework Directive requires EU Member-States to establish systems for separate collection of used textiles by 1st January 2025. The EU Textiles Strategy, scheduled to come out in the summer of 2021, may include further guidance on target-setting and harmonised collection systems across the EU in view of meeting the 2025 mandatory collection deadline.

The series will consist of 4 interactive webinars, each lasting 45 minutes, and covering a different topic that will support city governments to achieve the goals and targets highlighted above. Each webinar will start with a short presentation, allowing for ample time for participants to ask questions and to share their own perspectives and experiences on the topic.

Session I – Replicating #WearNext NYC – 6 May 2021

How can cities replicate the 2019 #WearNext campaign the Ellen MacArthur Foundation delivered in New York City together with the City and its network?

Speakers:

  • Laura Balmond, Make Fashion Circular Lead, Ellen MacArthur Foundation
  • Kate Kitchener, Chief of Staff Bureau of Recycling and Sustainability, New York City Department of Sanitation
  • Amaya Guillermo, Communication and Corporate Affairs Division, Zara USA
  • Session II – Connecting the dots – 20 May 2021

    How can cities leverage local community initiatives to enable the circulation of clothing and textiles, thereby decreasing the municipal collection systems’ pressure? Such as stimulating activities like repair, peer-to-peer exchanges, reuse, and building local skills to improve how products are cared for and maintained.

    Speakers:

  • Isabelle Lefort, Co-Founder Paris Good Fashion, Paris Good Fashion
  • TBC Florentin Letissier, Deputy to the Mayor in charge of circular economy, City of Paris
  • Session III – Revising procurement processes – 2 June 2021

    How can cities redesign the procurement processes that deliver permits for collecting and handling used textiles, turning these processes into an opportunity to incentivise circular business models and create resource management systems that keep textiles at their highest value?

    Speaker: Michiel Westerhoff, Programme Manager CirkelWaarde at Circulus-Berkel BV

    Session IV – Building and scaling the infrastructure – 17 June 2021

    How can cities collaborate with neighbouring cities and regions to create a common network of resource flows, thereby tapping into economies of scale? How can sorting operations be scaled in practice? What innovations and technologies help detect material content, decontaminate, and reprocess fibres at scale?

    Presenting the case study: Increasing the circularity ambitions of regional waste management with Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto Oy

    Speaker: TBC Sini Ilmonen, Senior Specialist Circular Economy and Co-Creation, at Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto

    To register for the series, click here: https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.wufoo.com/forms/m1a3115m1lzz25y/