Recycling of Low Grade Clothing Waste - Oakdene Hollins

© Oakdene Hollins Ltd, Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd
Nonwovens Innovation & Research Institute Ltd September 2006
8.6.3 Support for Door-Step Collections
Payment of Recycling Credits
As noted in Section 6.2.3, currently Local Authorities can opt to pay
recycling credits to third party organisations recycling materials that would
otherwise be included in the household waste stream. Distribution to
clothing collection companies is patchy. From a survey carried out in June
2006 (see Section 6.2.3) it is estimated 49% of Local Authorities pay credits
for textiles, with others opting not to. However, discussion with textile
recycling industry sources indicate that this figure could be much lower,
perhaps only 10%. If true, this suggests that is was mainly those Local
Authorities paying recycling credits which had responded to the survey,
whereas those not paying credits had not responded.
The survey indicated that 71% of Local Authorities who pay credits pay
them to charitable organisations whilst only 16% pay credits to commercial
organisations. This may reflect reluctance to pay credits to organisations
that collect sporadically when the market conditions are attractive.
However, the payment of recycling credits to those organisations prepared
to enter into long term collection contracts with Local Authorities appears a
reasonable and measured response to the long term declining attractiveness
of the textile recycling industry.
Extension of Recycling Credits to Re‐use
From April 2006 it was permissible for Local Authorities to pay recycling
credits to organisations that re‐use as well as recycle wastes. Clothing
discarded to (or by) charity shops or collected door‐to‐door is not defined
as waste, but clothing collected by textile banks is defined as waste. This
appears somewhat perverse, since collection organisations encourage the
same mix of materials and attitude from the householder towards textile
banks and door‐step collection.
The life cycle evidence indicates that greater environmental benefit comes
from the displacement of new clothing than from avoidance of disposal.
Notwithstanding policies that are structured around the recycling of
‘waste’, there appears, therefore, to be a case for incentivising re‐use to a
greater extent than recycling: existing policies create a perverse incentive to
low grade, non‐viable collection systems that collect only materials suitable
for recycling.
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