Three large apparel trade groups have formed an organization that, if chosen by the state of California, could serve as the operational backbone for the first law in the U.S. that mandates the management of textile waste.
On Nov. 3, the Textile Renewal Alliance (TRA) announced its creation along with its bid to help execute California’s Responsible Textile Recovery Act by serving as the producer responsibility organization (PRO). The nonprofit alliance comprises the National Retail Federation, the California Retailers Association and the American Apparel and Footwear Association.
The extended producer responsibility (EPR) law, which took effect in January, establishes that brands deal with the post-consumer journeys of their used clothing, shoes, handbags, bedding, curtains and other textiles. Toward that end, it will tab a PRO to coordinate material repair, reuse or recycling, as well as register textile producers, collect fees, establish collection networks and report progress to the state.
Last year, the apparel industry produced 120 million metric tons of waste, an amount that could shoot up by another 30 million metric tons within five years, according to the Boston Consulting Group.
A bid for PRO status
By January 1, 2026, California will begin to take applications from bodies interested in the role of overseeing PRO; the state’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, nicknamed CalRecycle, will make the selection in March. By next July, companies selling or importing textiles in California will need to join the approved PRO.
The PRO will have until 2030 to put a stewardship plan in place, and in 2032, CalRecycle will be able to tweak how the law is executed.
Months away from the CalRecycle decision, the new alliance is promoting itself as being able to leverage members’ intimate industry knowledge and resources to reduce waste at scale. Those entities also have incentives to comply with the EPR law.
“The National Retail Federation is working with our industry partners, producers and stakeholders in California to strengthen infrastructure for managing textiles in the state,” said Stephanie Martz, the National Retail Federation’s chief administrative officer and general counsel, in a statement about the alliance’s launch. “Through TRA, we’re striving to create a producer‑led stewardship system where textiles are used, reused and recycled responsibly and thoughtfully.”
The D.C.-based National Retail Federation has more than 16,000 members and a board with executives from Walmart, Target and Levi Strauss. The Sacramento-based California Retailers Association represents a wide range of retailers. The D.C.-based American Apparel and Footwear Association includes more than 1,100 brand members and a board filled in part by Ralph Lauren, New Balance Athletics and Carhartt.
At the moment, at least one other group is seeking to become the PRO. The Landbell Group, based in Mainz, Germany, already manages 42 producer responsibility organizations in 18 countries. In the Netherlands, it has managed more than 18,700 tons of used textiles since January.
“Our extensive background in managing multiple PROs around the world and our specific expertise in managing and developing textile PROs puts us in a unique position” to do the same in California,” said John Hayes, Landbell’s president.
Execution of EPR
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and other nonprofits have rallied around EPR rules, which are also rolling out across the European Union. They see the Golden State’s legislation as crucial to managing spent materials, ideally after reuse and waste prevention have been exhausted.
The “producer‑led stewardship” pitch of the TRA, though, worries some sustainability advocates, who wonder if the same industry groups that generate textile waste should be responsible for managing it.
The new textile law is similar to California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act which was signed in 2022. In that case, the state-designated PRO is the Circular Action Alliance, whose board includes retail, consumer brands and packaging leaders such as Amazon, Coca-Cola and Target.
Best-case scenario, California’s textile EPR law will become a blueprint for the rest of the country, said Teresa Milio Birge, state policy manager of American Circular Textiles, a Brooklyn nonprofit that lobbies for fashion industry regulation. (Its members include brands H&M and Reformation; secondhand retailers eBay, ThredUp and Vestiaire Collective; and textile recycling startups.) And that means the TRA, or whichever group is ultimately chosen, could find itself in position to serve other states who pass EPR laws in the future. Currently, bills are brewing in New York and Washington State.
“While Textile Renewal Alliance is only one organization vying for PRO designation, it’s important to consider that this nonprofit has been established by three trade associations,” she said. “We are eager to see how the position of these associations may be considered, especially as governance is put into practice.”
