Modulating the Spanish textile fee: how Tier 3 chemical recycling will be evidenced before the MITECO Royal Decree

Chemical vs mechanical recycling

The transition towards a circular textile value chain requires overcoming the intrinsic limitations of mechanical processing. Mechanical recycling operates through the physical shredding and tearing of fabrics. This process irremediably degrades the fibre length and diminishes the mechanical properties of the resulting material. While mechanical recycling constitutes a mature and consolidated technology in Spain for the treatment of pre-consumer waste, its effectiveness drops drastically with post-consumer waste. The complexity of modern textile composition, characterised by fibre blends and the constant presence of elastane, acts as a critical contaminant that compromises the technical viability and the economic cost of conventional technologies.

Chemical recycling intervenes exactly where mechanical recycling fails. Through depolymerisation, glycolysis or pyrolysis processes, synthetic polymers are broken down to their base monomeric level. This molecular disaggregation makes it possible to isolate and purify the components and to eliminate both dyes and structural contaminants. The result is a secondary polymer with properties identical to those of virgin material. This technological vector is fundamental for brands operating in the European Union. Directive (EU) 2025/1892 underscores the need to prioritise increasing fibre-to-fibre recycling and to reduce operations that occupy lower positions in the waste hierarchy.

The level of the supply chain responsible for this transformation is called Tier 3. Here operate the chemical facilities that produce the secondary polymer or the recycled pellets. Their activity is decisive for scaling up closed-loop recycling. The future obligation to incorporate recycled content into textile products, required by the European ecodesign framework, will depend exclusively on the industrial capacity installed in this link. Operators that manage to integrate stable flows of secondary polymer from post-consumer textile waste will guarantee their long-term viability. Without an operational and auditable chemical infrastructure at Tier 3, the disconnection between the generation of textile waste and the consumption of virgin raw material is impossible.

MITECO Royal Decree draft: the Tier 3 vacuum

The Spanish regulatory framework is advancing towards the implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) for textile products. Law 7/2022 on Waste established 31 Dec 2024 as the deadline for the separate collection obligation. Now, the draft Royal Decree on textile products, whose public consultation closed on 4 Sep 2025, must land the financial and organisational obligations. The text details the mechanisms for producers to assume the cost of waste management. However, the regulatory analysis reveals a severe technical vacuum regarding the documentary accreditation of the secondary raw materials obtained at Tier 3.

Article 29.3 of the MITECO Royal Decree draft establishes that the amount of the financial contribution to the collective systems (SCRAP) will be modulated based on the ecodesign requirements adopted in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. The rule indicates that this modulation will reward waste prevention and treatment aligned with the European hierarchy. Likewise, Annex VII details exhaustively the criteria for calculating the financing of the management cost, breaking down the expenses of collection, transport, sorting and subsequent treatment. Compensation is assumed for the revenue derived from the value of the secondary raw materials from the recycled waste.

The vacuum lies in the evidentiary mechanism. The Royal Decree does not specify any direct verification protocol to confirm that the secondary polymer acquired at Tier 3 actually comes from post-consumer textile waste and not from PET bottles or other plastic flows. Directive 2025/1892 requires fibre-to-fibre recycling. By delegating the specification of the parameters to the future delegated acts of the ESPR Regulation, MITECO leaves Spanish operators without a clear documentary framework to certify the origin of chemical recycling. Brands lack a public standard defined in the text to audit the mass balance of their chemical suppliers. This technical indeterminacy paralyses the structuring of the secondary supply chains, precisely when Directive 2025/1892 sets the mandatory nature of textile EPR regimes for 17 Apr 2028.

Refashion precedent: closed loop vs open loop

The indeterminacy of the Spanish draft contrasts head-on with the operational certainty of the French framework. France has been operating its own extended producer responsibility regime for textiles for years and the maturity of its regulation offers a clear navigation map. Brands operating on a pan-EU level are already subject to this documentary rigour. Non-compliance with the obligations in France entails severe risks; the DGPR penalty against Refashion of €170,000 (ref. BREP_26_037) evidences that the French regulator enforces its control measures without reservation.

The Arrêté of 23 Nov 2022, which establishes the specifications for the textile sector's eco-organisations, articulates a fee modulation based on strict technical differentiation. The text imposes direct economic premiums on the incorporation of raw materials from recycling. For closed-loop recycling (fibre to fibre), the French decree stipulates a premium of €1,000/t applicable to raw materials from the recycling of post-consumer TLC waste. By contrast, for open-loop recycling, the premium is reduced to €500/t for raw materials derived from collected waste.

This economic asymmetry between closed loop and open loop obliges operators to have absolute control over the origin of their raw material at Tier 3. To access the €1,000/t premium, the brand must demonstrate to the eco-organisation (Refashion) that the secondary chemical polymer undoubtedly comes from post-consumer textile waste. The traceability must cross the suppliers' borders and withstand compliance audits. The difference in scenarios is radical. A brand operating exclusively in Spain faces the uncertainty of the MITECO Royal Decree. A brand operating in Spain and France must comply today with the French verification thresholds to optimise its financial contribution. The French framework demonstrates that the modulation of the EPR fee requires an unbreakable molecular accreditation protocol.

Proposed accreditation framework

Faced with the evidentiary vacuum of the MITECO Royal Decree draft for chemical recycling at Tier 3, the regulatory compliance areas must build a verification architecture based on private standards and third-party audits. The objective is to structure a documentary file that withstands the scrutiny of the Spanish SCRAPs and the requirements derived from the ESPR Regulation (2024/1781). The validation of fibre-to-fibre recycling requires integrating chain of custody certifications and materials accounting.

The first pillar of this framework rests on the global recycling standards. The GRS (Global Recycled Standard) and RCS (Recycled Claim Standard) certifications provide the methodological basis for tracking the physical flow of materials. These certifications ensure that the supplier at Tier 3 maintains a documentary management system capable of identifying the input batches. However, chemical recycling rarely operates in a segregated manner. Depolymerisation and pyrolysis facilities simultaneously introduce virgin raw material and textile waste to maintain reactor stability. Therefore, physical certification is insufficient. It is imperative to implement mass balance accounting. This approach tracks the exact proportion of post-consumer waste introduced into the chemical process and algorithmically allocates it to the resulting secondary polymer. The mass balance acts as the only valid accounting vector to claim the recycled content before the regulator.

The third pillar guarantees the integrity of the system. The MITECO Royal Decree draft requires extended responsibility systems to implement self-control mechanisms supported by periodic independent audits. For the fee modulation to be approved, the textile brand must require its Tier 3 suppliers to undergo an annual external audit that validates both the GRS/RCS certification and the mass balance allocation. The resulting certificate must accredit the post-consumer origin of the original textile matrix and rule out the presence of PET bottles or other open-loop plastics. This documentary triangulation forms the only valid firewall to mitigate the ambiguity of the current Spanish regulatory text.

Double-counting risk, zero-fee

The adoption of accounting models based on mass balance introduces a structural vulnerability into EPR fee modulation. When a material is physically recycled through mechanical shredding, the batch trace accompanies the resulting fabric. In chemical recycling, the molecules dissociate and the physical link with the original waste disappears. The proportion of recycled content becomes a purely administrative allocation. This dissociation generates a critical risk of double counting and multiple allocation along the supply chain at Tier 3.

If a secondary polymer producer lacks inviolable algorithmic traceability, there is a technical possibility of selling the same recycled content credit to two different textile brands. Both brands would present the same sustainability claim to their respective SCRAP to access the modulation of the financial contribution. The MITECO Royal Decree draft underscores that the calculation of the amount will take into consideration the value of the secondary raw materials from the recycled waste. An accounting error in the transfer of these credits completely distorts the eco-organisation's economic calculation and violates the basic principle of competition. The detection of double counting during an administrative inspection would automatically invalidate the fee reduction for the affected brand.

The regulatory framework requires irrefutable data. The MITECO Royal Decree draft requires the figures of reused and recycled waste to correspond to the data certified by each operator for this purpose. Without a traceability system that connects the waste operator register (Tier 4) with the chemical recycler's mass balance (Tier 3) and the brand's final declaration, the application of the zero-fee or favourable modulation lacks legal support. Assuming the risk of auditing chemical recycled content through isolated documents or self-assessment declarations exposes the company to retroactive financial recalculations and penalty proceedings under the new waste jurisdiction.

Anticipating the verification framework

The evidentiary vacuum of the MITECO Royal Decree at chemical Tier 3 will not be resolved automatically with the publication of the definitive text. The operational specification will depend on the delegated acts of the ESPR Regulation (2027 horizon) and on the specifications of the future Spanish textile SCRAPs. Brands that wait for absolute settlement will lose two years of documentary advantage and risk retrospective audits when the regime becomes enforceable.

For textile brands that need to evidence Tier 3 chemical recycling before the future MITECO Royal Decree without waiting for the final protocol: Regulatory Readiness — TraceWeave's module to map the GRS/RCS chain of custody + mass balance + annual external audit of the secondary polymer; it connects the Tier 4 waste operator, the Tier 3 chemical recycler and the brand's final declaration into an auditable matrix. → Discover Regulatory Readiness