About 11.3 million tons of textile waste are sent to landfills in the United States each year, and roughly 85% of all finished textile goods end up in landfills or incinerators. According to data from TheRealReal, an online luxury textile consignment platform, only about 14.7% of post-consumer textiles are recycled or reused through donation. The average American discards between 70 and 82 pounds of clothing and textiles each year.

In response, Maine Representative Chellie Pingree introduced the Textile Waste Reduction Act (TWRA). As founder of the Congressional Slow Fashion Caucus, Pingree has long focused on this issue, and the legislation aims to establish a coordinated federal framework to reduce textile waste, improve data collection, and develop a national strategy to advance circularity in the textile industry.

The bill is grounded in a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). In an article for GlobalData, Pingree said the report confirmed what the industry has known for years: textile waste is one of the fastest-growing waste categories in the United States, driven primarily by fast fashion, and only federal action can truly address this crisis. According to the original article, this was the first time in GAO history that a report was issued on fast fashion pollution.

If the bill passes, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be required to take a series of actions, introducing the first national framework to address the issue. Previously, there was no national initiative to govern textile waste in the United States; although some states have taken action on their own, the original article argues that only a national framework like the one Pingree proposes can achieve governance at scale.

However, the legislative outlook is not optimistic. Pingree's efforts in this area have continued for a long time, but the relevant bills have largely failed to advance in this and previous congressional sessions. With the midterm elections approaching, the situation is uncertain; and if the majority party in the House changes, the new majority will have a heavy agenda, and the bill may still struggle to become a priority.

Even if the bill passes, much work remains: various regulations and interagency mechanisms would need to be established, and before implementation, procedures such as public notices and industry notifications would still have to be completed, further lengthening the timeline.

For U.S. textile waste governance, the significance of this bill lies in its first attempt to replace a patchwork of state-by-state approaches with a federal framework. But whether it can complete the full legislative process still depends on the direction of Congress's political calendar.

Source: Does the Textile Waste Bill Have a Chance at Passing? · Originally published 2026-09-28