Textiles recycling ‘two years from normal’

A webinar held by the textiles division of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) heard that the sector is up to two years away from returning to “business as normal”. The session was kicked off by the textiles division president Martin Böschen, from the Swiss-based textile recyclers Texaid. He explained that while recent months had brought some improvement in demand and payments for sorted goods, prices were still “15-25% lower than before Covid-19”. He went on to say that demand for recycled goods “had not picked up at all”, adding that many sorting companies in Europe were working “at reduced capacities” while stocks of originals held in warehouses were “one and a half to two times higher than normal at this time of year”.

Lisa Jepsen of US-based Garson & Shaw reported that most companies in the USA and Central America had seen their sales nosedive in the early stages of the pandemic but these had now returned to approaching normal levels. Stocks had been quick to fall once charity shops reopened, she added. Reporting on the Bulgarian market, Yavor Pandov from the country’s Association of Recyclers and Traders of Second Hand Clothes (ARTSHC) confirmed that volumes had returned to around 90% of pre-Covid levels. He said Africa and Pakistan had resumed their regular purchasing levels “in terms of quantities, not in terms of price”. BIR Textiles Division’s general delegate Alan Wheeler, director of the UK’s TRA, told the webinar that a tax on used clothing “defeats the whole point of EPR”.

In its position paper, issued separately to the webinar, the TRA cited the huge environmental and social impacts associated with the UK’s clothing supply chain, making the case for completing this review at the earliest opportunity compelling and absolutely necessary. Mr Wheeler said: “The existing fashion industry model of take, make, use and dump needs to be overhauled now into a radical and new circular economy for the fashion industry. What we are proposing is a starting point from which the whole sector can seek to build a fair an equitable EPR framework, that should not only benefit everyone involved in the entire supply chain, but in the wider global society and environment”.

Source: Let’s Recycle