Textile pact
About this good practice
The "Textile Agreement was signed between the Tuscany Region, the Municipality of Prato, Alia Servizi Ambientali spa (management company of environmental services in central Tuscany), as well as other entities representing the Lucca-Prato-Pistoia Textile District.
The objective of the Pact is to encourage the formation of certain and stable supply chains to be developed from processing to the destination of waste and reuse or, where this is not possible, to incineration plants or landfills.
The Pact aims to help the companies of the district to deal with their waste. This is due to the fact that, starting from 2017, some Municipalities located in the district have ordered the de-assimilation of waste characteristic of textile processing from urban waste. The producers of this waste, in the event that such waste was not allocated for recovery, have to characterize it, with an increase in charges for smaller companies, widely present in the district.
The protocol contains some concrete proposals made by the Region for manging the textile waste of the district, including: the provision of a platform owned by ALIA that takes care of the collection from the companies, of the characterization and of a first processing in view of a subsequent sending to recovery or disposal plants; the possibility of demonstrating the fulfillment of the conditions required by law for the use of by-products through contractual documentation between the producer of the by-product and the user.
Resources needed
meetings with stakeholders for drafting the Pact and the Guidelines: 105 h/m (regional employees, agencies)
Guidelines: 80h/man, as above
preliminary investigation of the "Textile Pact" 76 h/man, as above.
activities subsequent to the approval of the agreement and guidelines: 10h / man, as above
Evidence of success
The definition of the Guidelines on by-products
A first study on the characterization of textile waste, from which it emerged that where there is a strong presence of polyester fibers there are problems in respecting the antimony limits in the release tests and.
The updating of the list of wholesale goods listed by the specific commission in the Chamber of Commerce which now includes all the by-products identified in the Guidelines.
Potential for learning or transfer
The Textile Pact puts in place policies and actions aimed at encouraging the development of the circular economy of the textile district and the creation of conditions that allow a network collection of special waste, together with the identification of new opportunities to which operators will be able to access.
The usefulness of carrying out a systematic sampling and analysis campaign of the typical waste of the district which was not recoverable, minimizing the management costs borne by the companies in the district.
The Tuscany Region is a highly specialized region in the textile manufacturing sector. The textile district is already a district that recovers and recycles a lot.
Since Italy and, consequently, Lombardy Region, is characterized by several districts, this practice offers lots of lesson learned to draw inspirations for other cases.
In addition to that, this practice is particularly noteworthy as it sees an active participation and commitment of all the stakeholders.