Recycling of Low Grade Clothing Waste - Oakdene Hollins

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© Oakdene Hollins Ltd, Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd Nonwovens Innovation & Research Institute Ltd September 2006 disrupts the material flow in the industry, significant costs can arise through additional storage and shipping delays. Inadequate information concerning prices is also a feature of many recycling markets. Prices of textiles are published regularly by MRW but these show a broad range of prices and categories of clothing and are not seen by the industry as being responsive to short term fluctuations in price. Considerable negotiation and bargaining costs are incurred as a result. Little evidence could be found of the existence of contractual relationships between the charities and the merchants or between the merchants and their overseas customers. The Recyclatex scheme operated by the Textile Recycling Association is designed to give the operators of textile banks, and the Local Authorities a guarantee that bank materials will be collected, but prices continue to be based on negotiation and are influenced by market forces at the time of collection. 7.3 Information Failures Full information flow is an important factor in the successful functioning of all markets. The uncertain quality of exported used textiles leads to a number of potential problems and encourages rogue operators into the market to the detriment of bona fide merchants. The buyer is taking on trust the quality of the mix of clothing within each bag delivered, and this will vary from bag to bag and from shipment to shipment. Clearly the heterogeneous nature of the product is an issue in many waste streams, but the remoteness of the markets from the shippers makes this a considerable complication in the export of used textiles. This will increase as more and more merchants attempt to reduce costs by shipping bulk textiles abroad without prior sorting of the material. Merchants shipping unsorted waste to export markets will, by definition, be shipping a mix of good and marginal quality re‐useable clothing and materials that are waste and which will require disposal. The greater the mix of low grade items and waste in the shipment, the lower the profit margin and the higher the disposal costs for the buyer. Some buyers will collect at source and this gives them the ability to check quality before shipment. For Defra Page 52
© Oakdene Hollins Ltd, Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd Nonwovens Innovation & Research Institute Ltd September 2006 7.4 Consumption Externalities Consumption externalities are the market effects caused by the consumer’s perceived quality of secondary materials and products when compared with new manufacture. An example is that of retreaded tyres which are perceived as inferior to new tyres for passenger car use by many motorists. This perception significantly reduces the market for tyres recycled in this way even though the quality of retreads now matches that of virgin tyres. This was seen as a possible issue with recycled fibres, especially if the fibres are used in the manufacture of new clothing for domestic consumption. The research at NIRI, which has been a key element of this study, has shown that it is possible to improve the functionality of recycled fibres in new end products for industrial markets. Negative perceptions are not likely to be significant in these markets, where functionality and price are the driving forces. Some efforts have been made to ‘recycle’ used clothing into new clothes. The charity Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development, (TRAID), operate a remanufacturing team of 10 designers in Brighton who take a small number of items, approximately 1% of their collected materials, for re‐design and formation into new garments under their “Remade” brand. In a recent development, designer clothes from recycled textiles have gone on sale in Topshop’s flagship store on Oxford Street, London under SATCoL’s “Emmeline 4 RE” brand. 7.5 Technological Externalities Technological externalities exist where the technical characteristics of the virgin material interfere with the downstream recycling process. This is increasing in relevance in the textile markets where fashion designers are increasingly looking to apply novel treatments for the base textiles and to adorn clothing with embellishments which add complexity to the recycling process. This is driven both by the fashion trends themselves and by the need to add value to a product that is coming under increasing price pressure from low labour cost manufacturing countries. Examples of the latter would be thermoplastic ‘non‐iron’ and ‘breathable’ coatings, applied to virgin wools and cottons. The coatings melt under pulling by conventional methods and cause equipment malfunction and contamination of the secondary material and end product. Indeed, the increasing use of synthetic base materials in the clothing market has already caused the waste management industry to ask for textiles to be separated For Defra Page 53
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