The campaign aims to increase the amount of clothing recycled by 50% and was launched this month with a celebrity fashion show in London. The show saw models wearing clothes which had been donated to the Salvation Army and promoted the recycling message. The campaign hopes to reduce the 900 million textiles items that go to landfill each year.
The government-funded campaign is a partnership initiative between ENCAMS and Recyclatex, the Textile Recycling Association's bonded recycling scheme for local authorities. The campaign aims to cash in on the post-Christmas clear out which traditionally sees an increase in clothes being recycled when people clear out their wardrobes to find space for their new Christmas outfits.
And it seems to be working, Ray Clark, operations manager for textiles recycler Lawrence M Barry, said normally there is an initial rush at the beginning of January but then volumes drastically fall, but this year he said volumes are staying high. “Let's hope it continues,” he said.
ENCAMS is calling on the public to recycle their old clothes and Ian Cole, of ENCAMS, told letsrecycle.com that every single textile recycler in the UK, except Oxfam was involved in the campaign. Andrew Stockwell, general manager of Oxfam Wastesavers, explained that this was because of “political” reasons.
Posters
Mr Cole said that with the help of a publicity campaign the scheme hopes to increase textile recycling by 50% during January. Posters will be put up across the country in bus shelters when there is a gap in advertising.
Gerald Cemmell, chairman of Recyclatex, said: “Recyclatex is working with ENCAMS to promote public awareness about textile recycling and increase textile recycling.”
As part of the campaign, Recyclatex is carrying out a one-month study where it will record how many items of clothing the public has donated. The statistics will compare the differences in volume between this January and previous years. Recyclatex hopes to have full figures of the volumes of material received in a couple of months which will show how successful the campaign has been.
He added: “All our members are involved and we are very keen to see if the poster campaign has a marked effect and can change the way the public act. If so then we will look to do further campaigns. Textiles recycling is very costly and as many banks are linked to charity schemes payment will be made to charities. The scheme aids recycling as it is important that clothing must not go to landfill.”
As the Salvation Army is the biggest textile recycler in the UK, a large number of clothes will be collected in their banks and will go to the developing world or sold to fund social projects in the UK. The Salvation Army is working closely with ENCAMS and as a result of its meetings with local authorities the Salvation Army has been able to put in extra recycling banks across the country.
Garth Ward, of the Salvation Army, “ENCAMS has been talking to local authorities and as a result of their work we were able to put in extra banks. We have increased our banks by 10% since last April and now have over 2,000.”
For more information visit www.encams.org
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