Shoes, shirts and slow fashion: Turin’s push for circular textiles

Think about this one shirt that you won’t wear anymore. It’s too good to be thrown away, but is there any alternative? Each European generates 16 kilos of clothing and shoe waste per year, but only about 15 % is separately collected. The rest still ends up in mixed household waste. 

Many European cities struggle with that textile waste. Shirts, shoes and towels pollute through microplastics, toxic emissions, and land use. Yes, textiles are a waste and a climate issue. Turin, one of the 100 Climate Neutral Cities, decided to approach textiles differently by preventing them from becoming waste in the first place. Besides AI monitored containers and a very clever match-making app, the city gave citizens the know-how to reduce, repair or recycle their textiles via two local initiatives. Let’s explore with Laura Ribotta, Environmental Innovation Expert at Comune di Torino, how to lift the stigma of second hand, how to police uniforms became the sweetspot and what other cities can learn.

Resources:

• Circular Cities Declaration
• EU Sustainable and Circular Textiles Strategy
• European waste framework directive (revised in 2025)

▶️The Road to Green: Watch this short video about Italy’s circular textiles on Euronews

This episode was made possible thanks to the CLIMABOROUGH project, co-funded by the European Union and CINEA. It has the ambition to bridge the gap between design and implementation of urban innovations, particularly in the face of climatic change and its consequential needs for adaptation and mitigation. https://climaborough.eu/