Combining Material Flow Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment to explore integrated textile waste management systems: current and future scenarios in Lombardy region (Italy)

Journal article, 2026

Rising textile consumption, low level of circularity in the textile sector, and recent European legislative developments, have increased attention on textile waste management. While several studies have assessed the environmental impacts of individual textile waste treatment processes, analyses of integrated textile waste management systems remain limited. To address this gap and support decision making, this study combines Material Flow Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate strategies for managing post–consumer textile waste, with a case study from an Italian region. Six scenarios were analysed, exploring the effects of restricting exports of textiles outside Europe, increasing the share of renewable electricity, improving separate collection rates, and implementing chemical recycling. A Material Recovery Score was also introduced to capture the trade-offs between material recovery and environmental impacts. Results confirm that preparing textiles for reuse delivers relevant environmental benefits, due to avoided impacts from virgin production, while restricting exports for reuse increases overall impacts. Future scenarios, characterised by higher separate collection rate and by the introduction of chemical recycling, achieve the highest Material Recovery Scores but also show higher environmental impacts, driven by energy demand and solvent use of chemical recycling processes. The adoption of more renewable electricity mixes results in slightly higher overall impacts in some categories, such as Climate Change, while categories like Resource Use (minerals and metals) show the opposite pattern. Overall, these findings emphasize the need to improve chemical recycling performance and prioritise effective reuse to minimise the environmental impacts of the waste management system, offering valuable guidance to policymakers and industry stakeholders.