RLG Joins ReHubs Alliance to Boost Textile Recycling and EPR Compliance in Europe

In the United States, Reconomy is predominantly represented by Reverse Logistics Group (RLG), which has been a leading provider of EPR compliance services since 2005. Now, the Munich-headquartered firm is planting a flag in Europe's most pressing sustainability challenge. RLG announced it has joined ReHubs, the textile circularity alliance, bringing its network of textile sorters and recyclers into a coalition that has set itself the target of recycling 2.5 million tonnes of European textile waste by 2032.

ReHubs, an initiative by the European Apparel and Textile Federation (EURATEX) launched in 2020 to tackle Europe's huge textile waste problem, will industrialise textile circularity by 2032. ReHubs is a partnership-based collaboration hub working to industrially scale up the collecting, sorting, processing and recycling of textile waste in Europe. RLG's membership adds a compliance and logistics dimension to an alliance already counting collectors, recyclers, brands, PROs, technology providers and investors among its 30-plus partners.

The timing is not incidental. A new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and ReHubs, published just days earlier, established the first harmonized fact base on textile waste in Europe, finding that the continent generates around 15.2 million tonnes of textile waste every year, including 13.3 million tonnes of post-consumer waste. Against that backdrop, textile-to-textile recycling currently represents less than 1% of post-consumer textile waste in Europe.

Robert van de Kerkhof, CEO at ReHubs, noted that "Europe has the opportunity to build a truly circular textile ecosystem, but it will require systemic change across the entire value chain," and that "textile-to-textile recycling is technically possible today, but scaling it requires coordinated action from industry, policymakers, and investors."

RLG arrives at ReHubs with credentials that go well beyond logistics management. With over 30 years of international experience managing complex EPR programs across multiple sectors, RLG combines deep regulatory knowledge with hands-on operational capability. In its compliance operations, Reconomy, RLG's parent company, submits over 10,000 data declarations every year from 23 regional hubs servicing over 80 countries. That cross-border infrastructure matters acutely here: harmonizing EPR schemes across jurisdictions is widely considered one of the hardest structural problems in scaling textile recycling.

The policy dimension is central to what ReHubs offers its members. Key milestones to watch in Europe's textile EPR framework include June 2027, when all EU member states must transpose the relevant legislation into national law, and April 2028, when EPR must be fully operative across the EU. ReHubs already channels member influence on regulation through a strategic alliance with EURATEX, giving partners a coordinated voice in regulatory engagement at the European level. For RLG, which through its ReDress subsidiary has been actively working to build the infrastructure needed to implement textile EPR in Italy, where Sara Faccioli serves as President of the Board of ReDress and Managing Director of RLG Systems Italia, the ReHubs network offers a wider stage for that work.

ReHubs hopes to recycle 2.5 million tons of textile waste by 2032, which represents around 35 to 40 percent of Europe's yearly textile waste. In the process, up to 10,000 new jobs would be created across Europe, positioning the continent as a global leader in circular textiles. Getting there, as the BCG report makes clear, will require the kind of cross-sector infrastructure that RLG has spent two decades building in other regulated categories. Whether that expertise translates cleanly into fiber-to-fiber recycling at continental scale is the proposition now being tested.