Hybrid Simulation of Urban Textile-Waste Collection in Parma: As-Is Assessment, Operational Redesign, and Behavioural Feedback

Urban textile-waste collection is becoming a strategic component of circular-economy policies, especially after the introduction of mandatory separate textile collection in the European Union. However, its design remains challenging because textile disposal depends not only on logistics, but also on irregular generation patterns, citizens’ willingness to participate, accessibility to bins, social influence, and perceived service reliability. In this context, simulation plays a fundamental role in supporting the sizing and redesign of collection systems, as demonstrated in a previously developed hybrid simulation framework, which reproduces the as-is scenario of the textile-waste collection system of Parma, Italy. In the present study, we extend our previous conference work by presenting two possible improvements where we increase bin numbers, rearrange their position, and consider different routing policies. The model reproduces real operational data and behavioural parameters derived from data on textile-disposal practice in Italy. Results show an improvement of service level, measured in terms of fill rate improvement from 89.7% to 94.1%, and increased waste interception from 58.1% to 64.5%. Nevertheless, these improvements are not enough to change citizens’ propensity to recycle, and therefore policy incentives remain necessary to close the gap between generated and recovered textile waste.