What actually happens to the clothes you donate for recycling?

In a warehouse on the outskirts of Sabadell, dozens of workers from the Fundació Formació i Treball (Training and Employment Foundation) rush to sort a constant stream of used clothing. Cotton shirts, sequined dresses, polyester sweaters, children's jeans. Each piece represents, in theory, a small act of solidarity and sustainability: a donation to "close the loop" of fast fashion. But the pace is frantic, the warehouses are full, and most of these garments, says Albert Alberich, founder and until recently director of Moda Re-, the Cáritas social cooperative specializing in textile recycling, "will end up in packages that will be shipped abroad." "The volumes are enormous; Europe simply doesn't have the sorting capacity to process them," he adds.

From Mallorca, Maria Suau, head of the environmental department at the Deixalles Foundation, describes a similar situation: "Three years ago we were already overwhelmed, collecting only 14 or 15% of all the textile waste generated." She predicts: "Now, with the new European requirement to collect all textiles separately, the situation will be unsustainable. We don't have the capacity or the market for so much clothing."

The European Waste Framework DirectiveThe European Convention on Textiles, which came into force in 2025, obliges member states to establish separate collection systems for textiles. It is one of the pillars of the European Green Deal and the Sustainable and Circular Textiles Strategy, which aims to reduce the sector's environmental footprint. However, in practice, the system is showing its flaws. What was meant to be circularity has often become a controversial diversion: an increasingly opaque flow of tons of clothing leaving Europe to be sorted, resold, or simply stored thousands of kilometers away, often under working conditions that violate international labor laws.

A system on the brink

Since the turn of the century, the overproduction of ultra-fast fashionDriven by empires like Inditex, H&M, and more recently the Chinese giants Shein and Temu, the market has been flooded with cheap pieces, from poor quality and a short lifespan. These pieces, made largely of synthetic fibers, are more easily damaged and difficult to reuse or recycle, as explained by the campaigns manager at the non-profit organization. Changing Markets Foundation, Urška Trunk.

Most of these garments are still not collected separately today. According to one study According to a 2024 study by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, 90% of municipal textile waste generated in Catalonia in 2020 ended up in landfills or incinerators, and only 10% was collected separately. However, official data from the Catalan Waste Agency puts the percentage of separate collection at 13.6% of the total, a figure that, in any case, must increase in the coming years in accordance with EU directives. Currently, however, the increase in donations and textile waste has exceeded the capacity of European social centers, and with China's massive entry into the secondhand market, the value of these garments has plummeted. The disconnect between the enormous volumes collected and the actual market demand has created a real logistical nightmare. "Currently, the price we are paid for clothing destined for export is less than the cost of collecting it," laments Suau. "It's not fair: we're paying for and taking on a problem we didn't create. The responsibility lies with the producers." This drop exceeds 50% in the international prices paid for used clothing now compared to 2022, according to Zoltan Gundisch of Aretex Romania. Like Suau, Gundisch laments that "many companies are operating at a loss and are just trying to survive." The minimum collection cost in Romania is around 22 cents per kilo; in Germany, about 27 or 28; in Italy, more than 30. With these margins, "the system is no longer viable without public support," the Romanian manager concludes. Some reusable items are sold within Europe itself, but most of the clothing and footwear collected in the designated containers is sent to wholesalers in the Global South—including many African countries—and to intermediary hubs such as Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In fact, the amount of used textiles exported outside the EU has almost tripled in the last two decades, reaching 1.26 million tons in 2024, according to the latest EU data. In Catalonia, the situation is not very different. Exporting has always been "the main way of managing textile waste," according to various sources, such as Natàlia Yesares, head of the environment and projects department at Solidança and member of the Spanish Association of Social and Solidarity Economy Recyclers. "We come from a highly dependent system [around 80% of the collected textiles were exported], and the viability of the model is based on the profitability of those exports," she adds. Faced with saturation and a lack of resources, many waste managers have had to resort to exporting this waste even without prior sorting in Catalonia. However, the merchandise travels using customs codes that should only be used for sorted used clothing.

"We have the largest sorting capacity in Spain," explains Alberich, adding, "but we still have to export a significant portion of the clothing we collect, since neither we, nor other operators, nor the rest of Europe have sufficient processing capacity." In Spain, according to Alberich's estimates, this represents approximately 60% of the 110,000 to 120,000 tons of clothing collected separately. However, various industry sources highlight the difficulty of finding reliable data sources, given the high volume of theft and the underground economy surrounding this activity.

ModaRe, in fact, admits to exporting clothing without prior sorting, but denies importing secondhand garments from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Pakistan. Some of the entities within the Spanish Association of Social and Solidarity Economy Recyclers (Aeress) also acknowledge exports to Pakistan and maintain that there are aspects of this market's international operations that are beyond their knowledge. Faced with the evidence presented in the report, Humana has admitted that it occasionally imports from countries like the UAE to supply its stores. Other major players in the sector, such as EastWest, have declined to comment. The UAE and Pakistani companies where the SmartTags ended up have not responded to requests for comment.

From Europe to Dubai and Pakistan… and back again?

Among exports, a handful of destinations stand out: the Emirati free zones of Dubai—Jebel Ali, Sharjah, and Hamriyah—and Pakistan's export zones, such as the one in Karachi. This is no coincidence. These zones, known as SEZs and EPZs, are special areas where goods can be imported, classified, and re-exported under specific customs regulations, generally duty-free. These economic zones facilitate exports and trade, but also hinder compliance with labor and environmental regulations, as numerous experts at the ARA have emphasized. The United Arab Emirates is, in fact, the leading non-EU destination for used clothing from the EU and the UK, receiving over 231,800 tons worth $147 million, followed by Pakistan with 208,600 tons, according to a 2023 Oxford Economics report. Of the 28 items tagged with SmartTags for this investigation to track their destination, six have arrived this year to be sorted there under opaque conditions and often by precarious workers.

Four of the garments thrown into the clothing bin with a sewn-in marker have ended up in the Karachi Export Processing Zone (KEPZ), confirming Pakistan's growing role in the trade of used European textiles. Two others have been geolocated in the UAE's free trade zones—one originally deposited at the collection point of the H&M store on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona.

The example of Spain is revealing: the volume of used clothing sent abroad quadrupled between 2015 and 2023, and more than 27% of these used garments that Spain declared having exported during that period went to the UAE as the first destination, followed by the United Nations (UN Comtrade).

A large portion of these garments don't remain in these special zones but are re-exported, primarily to African markets like Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. Some pieces are even sent back to Europe, completing a distorted kind of "circularity" that multiplies carbon emissions instead of reducing them.

Furthermore, while Spain reports sending massive volumes of clothing to the UAE, trade data reveals a surprising fact about what comes back. Ninety-nine percent of the Emirates' exports to Spain are re-exports; that is, the clothing arrives, is processed, and then is sent back here without any transformation—generally through Dubai's free zones, as Emirati sorters explained to this team.

The multiplied carbon footprint

Documents from the Romanian National Environmental Guard obtained by this team show that several companies are exploiting legal loopholes both within and outside the EU. In 2023, Romania intercepted 26 tons of clothing from Germany destined for a company located in the Sharjah Free Zone in the United Arab Emirates. Although declared as reusable clothing with cleaning certificates, inspections revealed dirty and damaged garments that should have been classified as waste.

However, the export was authorized. The final buyer was the Slovakian subsidiary of Garson & Shaw, a giant in the secondhand clothing and footwear sector. Subsequent data indicate further shipments from the UAE to Europe. This circular and opaque route raises questions about why a company that presents itself as sustainable diverts goods through multiple jurisdictions with little transparency.

One analysis A study by the consulting firm Inédito, commissioned exclusively for this research, quantifies the environmental impact of this model. Sending clothing to Dubai for sorting and resale in Spain triples CO₂ emissions compared to doing so locally: 0.576 tons of CO₂ equivalent per ton of clothing, versus 0.195 tons if done within the country. If the shipment is made by air, the impact is twelve times greater.

Although reuse is still less polluting than manufacturing new items, this international logistics largely dilutes the climate benefits that we might initially assume.

Catalonia and Europe face the challenge

The European REUSE network, of which Solidança (one of the organizations managing clothing collection containers in Catalonia) is a member, has been warning for years about this trend: a lack of genuine circularity, dependence on exports, saturation of the secondhand market, and a lack of public funding. At the European level, the new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) requirement was supposed to shift the management costs of this clothing onto manufacturers, as is the case for other materials like plastic or glass placed on the market. However, the implementation of this requirement is slow and uneven across member states.

The Netherlands was the first to implement extended producer responsibility in 2023 with clear targets: 50% of textiles should be ready for reuse or recycling by 2025, and 75% should be reached by 2030. Spain published a draft Royal Decree SCRAP in June 2025, but full implementation will not arrive until 2028.

Articles 6 and 8 of the Spanish Royal Decree set the following objectives:

• Prevention: reduce textile and footwear waste by 5% in 2030 and 10% in 2035 compared to 2027.
• Separate collection and recycling: to achieve at least 50% in 2030 and 70% in 2035 of the waste generated.
• Preparation for reuse: to achieve at least 20% by 2030 and 35% by 2035 of the waste collected separately.

"It's a necessary change, but it's overdue," warns MEP Helene Fritzon, a member of the Swedish Social Democrats within the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament. "Between the ban on littering and the lack of efficient recycling systems, there's a gap that threatens to collapse the sector," she adds. "Outsourcing the problem isn't the solution," warns Danish Green MEP Rasmus Nordqvist. "Taking full responsibility for what happens to a product from the moment it's created is essential," he continues.

In France, the new law on extended producer responsibility plans to penalize the fast fashion with higher rates per garment produced, introducing so-called ecomodulation, which sustainable producers have long been demanding. "It can't be that cheap to put a piece of fast fashion "in the market," says Suau. "This will be one of the great challenges in Europe."

According to data from the report commissioned by ModaRe in 2021, some 20,000 tons of clothing were collected, but this represents approximately 14% of the total generated (two points above the Spanish average). The Generalitat's Circular Economy 2030 plan aims to double this figure before 2027, but social operators warn that, without funding, this will not be possible. A pilot program is being carried out in different Spanish municipalities. The project is led by the Association for the Management of Textile and Footwear Waste, which includes brands such as H&M, Inditex, Decathlon, El Corte Inglés, Kiabi, Mango, Primark, Sprinter/ID and Tendam, and aims to implement the collection of containers for the management of the end of life of textile products. Before the end of the year, it is expected that there will be half a dozen active associations, such as the recently established in Spain as the European Recycling Platform (ERP), the only pan-European extended producer responsibility collective system operating in the State.

On a street in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona, ​​35-year-old Alberto shuffles through bags of clothes piled up next to a dumpster. This 35-year-old Venezuelan translator and computer programmer often visits these spots, sometimes to drop off what he no longer uses, and sometimes to collect clothes that others have left behind. "I try to give a second life to what I no longer use," he says. "But if the leaders and the industry don't drive a real change in the model, if they don't realize that this is counterproductive for everyone, anything we do will be somewhat in vain," he opines.

Europe had promised to close the loop in fashion, and according to experts, activists, and MEPs consulted, it already has the tools to do so. The RAP scheme could force fashion brands to invest in European sorting infrastructure, although it remains to be seen how it will be implemented and whether it will be sufficient to address the problem. What is closing, many warn, is the window of opportunity to do so in a real way: by tackling production (to reduce it), expanding repair (to reuse more), and implementing transparent management. Until that moment arrives, circularity will remain deceptive, relying on voyages by ship and plane to Dubai and leaving behind a trail of CO₂ and empty promises.