In late February, the European Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement on an update to the EU’s Waste Framework Directive (WFD).

The newly agreed targeted revision of the WFD aims to promote circular economy principles by introducing new targets and measures to cut both food and textile waste. Once in force, the revised WFD looks to increase the potential for further divergence between EU and UK policy in these areas. 

Building on the intentions set out by the EU in its strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, the amended WFD aims to create a circular economy for textiles and reduce waste through the creation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes for textile and footwear products within Member States. Under these schemes, producers will have to pay a fee to cover the costs of textile waste management, thereby incentivising them to produce higher quality, longer-lasting products and reducing waste. The fees paid by producers under the EPR schemes will vary by the environmental credentials of the products that they design, and these contributions will be used to improve separate collection, sorting, re-use and recycling facilities. 

This creates potential for divergence from the UK where an EPR scheme for textiles is not yet in place, with the previous government suggesting that its development was of lower priority than an EPR for packaging. It should be noted, however, that the updated WFD does not contain specific targets for carbon and water footprint reductions within the textile supply chain; in the UK, while voluntary, there are targets to reduce carbon and water footprint by 50% and 30% respectively by 2030. 

With respect to food waste, the revisions to the WFD set out Member State reduction targets of 10% for manufacturers and processors and 30% for retail, restaurants, food services and households by 2030. These targets have previously faced criticism from environmental NGOs such as Zero Waste Europe, who have argued that they do not go far enough in meeting the commitment made by the EU in its Farm to Fork Strategy to cut per capita food waste by 50% over the same period, in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3.

These WFD targets also open the door for divergence from the UK, where no such mandatory targets exist and the consultations on food waste targets promised in the 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy for England have still not been conducted. Legislative progress in this policy area in the UK has been more or less limited to the Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2025, which will require all workplaces in England to separate food waste. However, there are ambitious voluntary targets in place, including WRAP’s UK Food and Drink Pact, which contains an SDG-aligned aim to reduce per capita food waste by 50%. 

Criticisms of the EU’s new food waste targets under the WFD as unambitious are borne out by WRAP data revealing that – with voluntary targets alone – the UK was able to reduce manufacturing food waste by more than 27% between 2007 and 2018. Even after noting that the WFD is addressing a shorter timeframe, this data suggests that by implementing a target of only 10% by 2030, the EU is not yet going far enough to address this issue. 

Photo by Nick de Partee on Unsplash