Sustainable Textile - SusTex: exploring and adapting good practices for valorizing wastes in the textile and apparel supply chain

Environmental concerns about the textile industry have been steadily rising for many years. EU Directive 2018/85 requires the member states to introduce a scheme for separating textile waste by Jan. 1, 2025, a deadline that has been anticipated in Italy to Jan. 1, 2022 (D.Lgs. 116/2020). These regulations force to speed up the introduction of new collecting and recycling schemes that currently do not necessarily exist. Also, the development of more efficient and effective technologies for textiles recovery needs to be framed up and implemented within actual circular business models, with the potential to lengthen textile life cycles, also relying on new advancements in ICT. A necessary condition to a large-scale implementation of more sustainable behaviours by all involved actors in the Supply Chain (including consumers) is to devise and validate circular models based on new collecting and recycling schemes, as well as novel and resilient textile Closed-Loop Supply Chain configurations. These models would represent a fundamental enabling factor to sustain and support private and public effort in travelling the last mile of textile sustainability. The ultimate goals of the SusTex project are: (1) supporting the establishment of a circular value chain in the textiles SC, enabled by the use of modern ICT technologies, and with a combined focus on the viable recovery options of textile waste, and (2) increasing the awareness of the public sector at regional level, commercial and not-for-profit organisations, and consumers on the untapped potential of recycled/upcycled textile wastes. The project will unfold according to the Action Research protocol and it will deliver three main outputs: (i) a meta-model of the textile CLSC, comprehensive of a set of validated conceptual solutions and scenarios; (ii) a MCDM approach to carry out an all-encompassing judgement of the envisaged scenarios to textile waste recovery, and (iii) policy insights, social and environmental implications. SusTex project will deliver its benefits to all the actors involved in the overall process of textile waste recovery and will act upon all the dimensions of sustainability. It will provide institutional decision makers with insights regarding the policies to get the most out of textile waste collection systems. It will benefit practitioners by leading them in the selection of the enabling recycling/upcycling technologies, in the preliminary dimensioning of new SCs, and in the development and operating of sustainable logistics networks. The project could foster new business opportunities for existing companies and charities, and even for the creation of innovative start ups in the waste management field. Finally, SusTex will provide an important contribution to scientific knowledge and development, as it is expected to shed light on the impact of state-of-the-art ICT technologies on textile SCs, towards their greater economic, environmental, and social sustainability.