Share of the most popular clothing sold online that contains recycled content

In May 2024, on average 8% of the most popular clothing items sold online on Zalando in five different European countries contained at least some recycled content.

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An analysis of the most popular clothing items sold online in May 2024 on five different Zalando web shops throughout Europe, shows that on average 8 % of these items contains recycled content. Although there are differences between the analysed countries, the differences are relatively small, ranging from 7.4 % in Italy to 9.2 % in Belgium. However, there is a more significant difference between men’s and women’s clothing: recycled content is almost twice as prevalent in the most popular men’s clothing sold online compared to women’s clothing.

Between the various clothing categories, swimwear (22 %), coats (18 %) and tracksuits (18 %) are the product categories that have the highest shares of ‘most sold products’ that contain recycled content. On the other hand, none of the most sold shirts, underwear or dresses contain recycled content.

Polyester, polyamide and cotton are the dominant recycled fibres used. However, it is unclear which shares they represent.

One of the objectives of the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, is that by 2030, all textile products placed on the EU market are to a great extent made of recycled fibres (EC, 2022). This objective has been included in the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which entered into force in July 2024 and replaces the Ecodesign Directive (EU, 2024). The ESPR establishes a framework for ecodesign requirements, such as longer use, reparability, recyclability, use of recycled content. To date, no target has been set on the amount of recycled content or for which products the (partial) use of recycled content would become mandatory. Monitoring the use of recycled content on products put on the market is important as it is an indicator for the uptake of recycled content by the market which on its turn drives the collection, sorting and recycling of waste textiles.

Definition

Share of most online sold men’s and women’s clothing in five different EU Member States that contains recycled content.

Methodology

In May 2024, on the Zalando web shops of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and Italy, the detailed product information of the 20 ‘most popular’ clothing items per clothing category for both men and women was scraped. This resulted in a total of 3606 records with detailed product information, including information on the use of recycled content. Per country, the number of items that contain recycled content was divided by the total number of items scraped to calculate the share of items with recycled content per country. The average share was calculated as the average share of the five different countries.

Although the data give a geographical spread, it is not fully representative for the entire EU27. Similarly, only data from Zalando was used for this analysis. Although Zalando is one of Europe’s leading online clothing retailers, again, this is not fully representative for the entire European clothing market. The scraping took place in May 2024 and therefore only clothes sold during this moment in time were used to determine the share of clothes that contain recycled content. However, the same analysis could be repeated over time to see an evolution or trend in the share of most sold items that contain recycled content.

Metadata

Data source: Zalando

Unit: Number of items

Temporal coverage: May 2024

Geographic coverage: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy

Literature

· EC (2022), EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/textiles-strategy_en)

· EU (2024), Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 establishing a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for sustainable products, amending Directive (EU) 2020/1828 and Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 and repealing Directive 2009/125/EC (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1781/oj)

Share of the most popular clothing sold online that contains recycled content

References and footnotes