The Circular Textile Days is a business event that offers a great opportunity for meeting new partners in the sustainable textile business and for discovering and discussing innovative circular textile solutions. A broad selection of companies and institutes show their new sustainable, circular solutions. The entire textile-chain is present, from recycled yarn to eco-design garments, reusing materials and high-tech recycling. Visitors are expected from various textile industry segments, from B2B end-users to fashion brands, retailers, educators and students.

The catalogue, entitled « 20 years of ecodesign. Made in Euskadi », available in both physical and digital formats, is the first in Europe to compile a broad list of product categories from ten industrial sectors. The publication illustrates how lifecycle analysis methodologies have been applied to substantially improve the environmental impact of these products and to serve as an example for the European industrial sector. The catalogue, the first of its kind in Spain, compiles individual data sheets containing the main characteristics and aspects of each circular product, dividing them into ten sectors, namely the chemical industry, the metal sector, furniture, automotive, food, production and consumption, machinery, transport, electric-electronic, and the construction materials sector.

Textiles are on average the fourth-highest source of pressure on the environment and climate change from a European consumption perspective, as shown in previous EEA briefings. Europe faces major challenges managing used textiles, including textiles waste. As reuse and recycling capacities in Europe are limited, a large share of used textiles collected in the EU is traded and exported to Africa and Asia, and their fate is highly uncertain. The common public perception of used clothing donations as generous gifts to people in need does not fully match reality.