Gaining benefits from discarded textiles: LCA of different treatment pathways

The Nordic Council of Ministers commissioned a consortium to carry out an LCA study to compare the environmental benefits of treatment options. Reuse was found to give by far the greatest benefits, regardless of whether the textiles are reused in the Nordic region or exported for reuse elsewhere. Further down the waste hierarchy, recycling is a better environmental option than incineration, although the benefits are moderate compared to the benefits of reuse.

The primary aim of the project was to provide a database that can assist policymakers and businesses to estimate the environmental benefits of strategies for gathering and treating discarded textiles. As such this report presents only a fraction of the results of the LCA modelling. Hundreds of additional results can be found in a number of spreadsheets that can also be downloaded here.