Falkirk says unsafe and counterfeit clothing, electrical items, jewellery, cosmetics, toys, vapes and tobacco are just some of the goods that its Trading Standards team has recently collected.
Falkirk says the goods were captured through national operations sharing intelligence across Trading Standards teams. The operations included monitoring local online selling groups and seizing goods at locations such as Grangemouth Docks.
Falkirk’s team has worked with other local authorities across Scotland to pull together the haul which, if made up of genuine products, would be worth more than £1 million, the council says.
Counterfeit clothes made their way to national charity Sports Traider, who rebadge and distribute the garments to disadvantaged young people.
LMB Textiles will repurpose rubber from fake trainers and make children’s playground equipment.
Kirstie Crosson, trading standards co-ordinator, said: “These goods do not comply with legislation for several reasons, and in some cases, pose a real danger to children.
“Getting them off the streets is our first concern as well as their environmentally safe disposal. We used to simply destroy them and take them to disposal sites. However, increasing costs and concerns for the environment made us look elsewhere at what we could do.”
Disposal
As for other counterfeit items, a spokesperson for Falkirk council told letsrecycle.com tobacco was separated from cigarette butts and used as mulch in landscaping.
Some clothing was sent to prison workshops to have unauthorised logos removed. Clothing with “complex” logos was shredded and used to pack car dashboards or cut into rags.
Counterfeit alcohol was made into air freshener, the spokesperson said, while DVDs were crushed and made into plastic granules, paper was shredded and recycled, and jewellery and watches were broken down, with metals going for recycling.
Landfill
Richard Thomson, senior trading standards officer, said Falkirk would usually send seized goods to a secure landfill at Avondale, costing them “a lot of money”.
Many get a real benefit from the reuse and recycling of the products that have been made safe and can no longer make criminals illegal earnings
- Richard Thomson, senior trading standards officer
“Instead, we worked with a national charity that can remove many of the trademarks and then redistribute them across the country for use by children and young people,” he said.
“So, items such as sports tops and joggers can finish up being reused; tobacco reused as garden mulch and rubber from trainer soles for materials used in children’s playgrounds.
“As a result, many get a real benefit from the reuse and recycling of the products that have been made safe and can no longer make criminals illegal earnings or pose a danger to the public.”
Brands
The brands featured in the seized counterfeit goods include Adidas, Omega, Rolex, Timberland, Lacoste and Converse, among others, Falkirk said.
Ms Crosson said: “Some of the fakes look almost identical to the real branded items and only a trained eye would be able to spot the difference between the real and the fake.
“However, you would soon know when your trainer disintegrated after a few weeks’ use as the materials are such low quality.”
Falkirk says some of the seized items “pose a real danger” to the public.
Mr Thomson said: “Authentic cigarettes have a reduced ignition propensity safeguard and will self-extinguish if left unattended so are unlikely to start a fire, while some of the cigarettes we have seized will simply keep on burning if, say, you fell asleep.”
Representing an estimated population of more than 160,000, Falkirk council has a current recycling rate of approximately 52%.
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