Situated traceability in post-consumer textile waste: Integrating technical data with the becoming of matter

Abstract

Circularity has become a crucial topic in the textile sector, highlighting the need to rethink production models still rooted in linear logics. In this context, post-consumer textile waste represents one of the most pressing challenges, as it consists of heterogeneous, contaminated materials that often lack a recognizable identity. To address these issues, the European Union has introduced the Digital Product Passport (DPP), a tool designed to ensure transparency across the entire product lifecycle. However, in cases of open-loop recycling — where materials are radically transformed and lose all connection to their origin — the linear model of traceability
proposed by the DPP reveals its limitations. This article offers a critical reading of these limits and introduces the concept of situated traceability, capable of also valuing the inherent opacity of post-consumer materials. Starting from a reflection on experimental waste transformation practices and from theoretical approaches that interpret materials as dynamic and relational entities, the article proposes a vision of the DPP as a potential narrative interface. In this perspective, tracing does not only mean identifying technical data, but making visible the contexts, relationships, transformations, and meanings that intertwine around the material.