Textile EPR six months on: US compliance starts amid lawsuits & scaled-back ambitions

At the start of the year, it seemed like textile Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for producers across the United States was just a policy on the horizon. Six months on, the framework, which makes manufacturers and importers responsible for textiles from production through end of life, is reshaping obligations for fashion companies on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, producers are already contesting it in court.

Summer has proven to be a particularly busy period, as within the span of three weeks, apparel producers selling in California met their first mandatory registration deadline on July 1, under the state’s Responsible Textile Recovery Act (SB707). Overseas, large fashion companies across the European Union are now prohibited from destroying unsold apparel, accessories, and footwear under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which took effect on July 19. A major milestone towards becoming a circular economy, the EU framework also requires large companies to publicly disclose the volumes of unsold textiles they discard, and why.

When FashionUnited first examined textile EPR in January, the question was not whether it would expand across the US, but how quickly other states would follow California, how consistent the resulting legislation would be, and how prepared companies would be when compliance arrived. Now, with the first half of 2026 delivering answers, we take a look at where textile EPR currently stands in the US.

California sticks to schedule, then heads to court

On paper, California has remained on schedule when it comes to its textile EPR program rollout. On February 27, 2026, the state’s recycling authority CalRecycle designated Landbell USA, the US subsidiary of Germany’s Landbell Group that operates a textile producer responsibility organization (PRO) in the Netherlands, as the PRO under SB707, selecting the organization over industry-led coalitions the Circular Textile Alliance and the Textile Renewal Alliance.

Following the appointment, all producers with more than one million dollars in annual global sales that sell apparel or textile products within California were required to register with Landbell USA starting July 1, 2026, paying a flat fee of 1,000 US dollars for the 2026 to 2027 period to fund the statewide needs assessment that is due by March 2027. While producer fees are not expected to start until the full program's implementation in 2030, registration is viewed as the first concrete compliance requirement.

“California is setting a global precedent for textile sustainability,” said Patrick Gibbs, executive director at Landbell USA, in a press release at the time. “This selection marks a turning point for the industry,” added John Hayes, President at Landbell USA. “By leveraging Landbell’s global expertise in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), we are prepared to turn the challenges of textile waste into a robust system of resource recovery.”

However, not everyone in the industry seems to share that same confidence in the state’s chosen steward. On March 27, the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), a trade association representing more than 1,100 apparel and footwear brands, retailers and manufacturers, filed a petition in Sacramento County Superior Court, challenging CalRecycle’s selection. Why? The AAFA argues that Landbell USA fails to meet the requirements for a PRO, noting, among other things, that the organization was not formed by producers and that its nonprofit standing remains unresolved given its ties to a for-profit parent company. In April, the association followed up with a motion for a preliminary injunction that would pause further implementation while the court case proceeds, with a hearing now scheduled for August 7.

The case marks a turning point, as the AAFA fully supported SB707 when it was signed into law in September 2024. The argument appears to have moved on from whether producers should have the responsibility to fund end-of-life systems for textiles to who administers them and under what governance. In the meantime, CalRecycle has confirmed that the July 1 registration remains despite the pending litigation, and thousands of brands have registered and paid, an organization whose approval a court may yet vacate.

The current state of textile EPR in California echoes a warning that was shared during the American Circular Textiles (AMCIRC) webinar covered by FashionUnited in January. "The two things that are anathema to business are uncertainty and inconsistency," said Shelia Millar, partner at Keller & Heckman LLP, at the time. California producers are now experiencing both, but not from fragmented state definitions as some anticipated, but from a legal challenge to the program’s core.

Washington, where ambition faces implementation

A different type of uncertainty went on to shape the session in Washington state this year, where House Bill 1420, the textile EPR proposal sponsored by Representative Kristine Reeves, was carried into 2026. Substantially rewritten along the way, the substitute version removed the EPR program entirely, replacing the proposed producer responsibility organization with a “Textile and Apparel Coordinating Organization,” tasked with conducting a needs assessment.

The bill’s stated intent was to establish a “better understanding of current and needed systems” for managing textiles, information that "may be useful" to a potential future EPR program that focuses on repair and reuse. The legislature added that nothing in the assessment would be binding on future lawmakers, highlighting how Washington has shifted away from potential EPR adoption to investigation. The scaled-back bill received a public hearing in the House Appropriations Committee in early February but never advanced to a floor vote before the session adjourned in March.

The outcome is not entirely surprising, as Reeves herself said during the webinar in January that she is “willing to kill bills that aren’t right yet,” adding: “Intent is great, but implementation matters.” Washington’s retreat from an EPR framework to a study-first approach implies that the lawmaker took stakeholder concerns regarding feasibility, as well as the infrastructure gap that Reeves herself pointed out, to heart.

New York hits pause

Similar to Washington, New York’s EPR proposal, Senate Bill S3217A, was also carried into the 2026 session. The bill widely mirrors California’s structure, but aims to go further in one respect by introducing a ban on textile disposal at solid waste facilities, an addition with significant implications for waste operators and producers. The bill remained in committee when the legislative session closed in June, leaving New York's proposal on ice until at least next year.

A current snapshot of the landscape for EPR is one that many would not have been able to predict 18 months ago, when Washington and New York introduced their own bills just months after California’s law was signed. Now, California stands alone, its first-mover experiment remaining the only live test of textile EPR in the United States.

The EU continues to raise the stakes for EPR

While US stakeholders deliberate about the future of textile responsibility, Brussels has moved decisively forward. The destruction ban, now in force for large companies, will extend to medium-sized ones in 2030. Implementing regulations adopted in February this year clarify the narrow exemptions, like documented safety issues or irreparable damage, and introduce a standardized format for disclosing discarded, unsold goods, applicable from February 2027 onwards.

For American brands and retailers, the ban is more than just a distant regulatory notion, as it applies to them directly. Any US companies selling goods into the EU, whether they be a manufacturer, importer or online seller, are covered above the size threshold, meaning a company’s unsold European stock falls under the ban. Taken together, the two cover the product lifecycle at both ends, with the US textile EPR holding producers responsible through to end of life, funding the management of post-consumer waste, while the EU's destruction ban targets pre-consumer waste, forcing companies to find alternative outlets, like resale, donation, remanufacturing, recycling, for stock that never reached a consumer. International companies operating in the EU and California will have to account for both.

In the same webinar from January, Andriana Kontovrakis, director of EPR solutions at Reverse Logistics Group, argued that starting early on compliance would save companies time, money, and risk. Half a year later, her point has been proven, as retailers and brands that had mapped their California obligations registered with relative ease by July 1, while those that waited scrambled against a deadline complicated by litigation headlines.

The road ahead for textile EPR

What comes next for textile EPR will either bring producers further clarity or compilation. The hearing on August 7 will determine whether California’s program proceeds under Landbell USA or not. CalRecycle's needs assessment workshops will begin the same month ahead of a March 2027 deadline, and statehouses in Olympia, Albany, and beyond will revisit textile EPR in 2027, with California's experience, courtroom and all, likely serving as their reference point.

If the first half of 2026 has proven anything, it is that the hard question is not whether producers pay for textile waste, but who will they pay, under what rules, and if the systems that are being built can manage the scrutiny placed on them. For now, it seems like nationwide textile EPR remains a distant light in the far-away future.