Recycling of Low Grade Clothing Waste - Oakdene Hollins

© 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
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