Recycling of Low Grade Clothing Waste - Oakdene Hollins

© Oakdene Hollins Ltd, Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd
Nonwovens Innovation & Research Institute Ltd September 2006
8.2.2 UK Economic and Employment Impact
As stated in Section 5 of this report, charity shops in the UK had total sales
of £469m in 2005, of which about £235m was estimated to come from
textiles. Resale of clothing rags (the residue that is un‐saleable for re‐use)
gave a sales income of approximately £18 million 8 . The shops employed
almost 10,000 paid staff (compared to 96,000 volunteers). In addition to
charity shop employment must there is direct employment by the textile
recycling industry.
Total profit by charity shops for all products was £95m in 2005 9 .
8.2.3 Impact on Developing Countries
The impact of second hand clothing exported to developing countries has
been studied recently 10,11 , concluding that the trade has clear benefits to
consumers in developing countries and supporting livelihoods. Although
there has been negative impact on indigenous textile industries, the main
adverse impact on these industries has been from globalisation of garment
production and low priced imports, rather than from second hand clothing.
8.3 Market Failures and Textile Recycling
8.3.1 Types of Market Failure
Economic instruments and in particular extended producer responsibility
(EPR) a measures represent one category of response to defined market
failures. Common types of market failure 12 in the wastes management
sector are:
• Negative or positive externalities
• Information failures
• Absence of perfect competition
• Use of public goods
• Constraints on Free Trade.
Defining the type of market failure and evaluating the extent to which it
explains the environmental problem of suboptimal resource use requires
careful evaluation before policy instruments are proposed. Proposing a
higher level of recycling than that delivered by the existing market
a
EPR is a policy in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the postconsumption
stage of the product life‐cycle.
For Defra Page 63