Textile Recycling Association appoints new president

Mr Barrys promotion was announced at the TRAs annual general meeting last week (February 13) by current president Gerald Cemmell.

Mr Barry, who is business development manager at LMB, will follow in his father Lawrence Barrys footsteps when he steps up from his current role as vice president at the TRAs quarterly meeting on March 7. Lawrence Barry was TRA president for a couple of terms in the early 1990s.

The TRA is the UKs trade association for used clothing and textile collectors, sorters and reprocessors.

Commenting on the appointment Mr Cemmell said: I am delighted that Ross Barry has agreed to step up from Vice President to President. Ross has given me considerable support over the last year and I know that working with [TRA national liaison manager] Alan Wheeler we can look forward to some exciting developments.

Focus

Speaking to letsrecycle.com about his priorities, Mr Barry said he wanted TRA members to play a more active role in the association and not just be onlookers.

Its going to be ongoing to try and talk to our members a lot. At the executive committee we do a lot of the work and sometimes the general members dont know what we are doing. I would like to see how they want the association to move forward.

He also wants to encourage more charities to get involved with the associations activities, particularly those that only run solely on textile collections and not on retail outlets.

I think talking to the charities and getting them to be a bit more involved, he said. The charities join but often arent too sure about how to promote their industry.

Meeting

At the annual general meeting, which was held last week at the Thistle Hotel in the Barbican in London, the TRA heard that over one million tonnes of textiles are still ending up in landfill, while 300,000 – 400,000 tonnes are accumulating in the national wardrobe every year.

The TRA believes that if this million tonnes of clothing can be reclaimed, then textiles prices will drop, making the market more stable. Tackling material theft through the Associations continued work with the police is also expected to help.

The key to this, according to Mr Barry, is making it easy for people to recycle their used clothing at a textile bank. I think that there are currently enough bring banks and that we have captured the market however we have got to make it easy for people to recycle, he said. If we can cover that then we will be winning.

Guidance

The TRAs progress throughout the sector was highlighted at the event by Mr Cemmell who noted that very significant developments had taken place under the Sustainable Clothing Roadmap.

The Sustainable Clothing Action Plan is a joint project by the TRA and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) which is designed to improve the sustainability of clothing across its lifecycle through the development of sector-wide targets. WRAP has been working on textile collections guidance aimed at local authorities which Mr Cemmell said would be published shortly.

Mr Cemmell highlighted the recent publication of guidance including the revised Code of Practice for Charitable Door-to-Door Collections which was published in March 2011 which Mr Cemmell urged members to join up to.

Mr Cemmell also noted that due to the increased value of textiles and the reduced quality of second hand clothing, donations to charity shops were falling and textile recyclers were looking at different strategies to gain the material they need. Some have resorted to opening Cash for Clothes purchase locations to compensate for the reduction in quantity and quality of items received, he said.