Wendy Yarney, charity partnerships director of textile recycling company BIU Group, will replace the current president Ian Woods on July 1, after his three year spell as president.
Ms Yarney was confirmed as president in a meeting earlier this year, where several others were also appointed to the executive committee including former TRA president Ross Barry, from LM Barry, and Tosh Vyas of Fortune ExImports.
Best practice
Wendy Yarney also said that she aims to promote transparency and best practice throughout the textile recycling industry, as well as pushing for higher quality of textiles clothing.
“I’m delighted and extremely proud to have been chosen to represent my peers as the president of the Textile Recycling Association,” she explained.
Ms Yarney added: “During my time in office I hope to continue the work that our organisation has already carried out in preventing callous thefts from clothing banks, that deprive charities and local authorities of hundreds of thousands of pounds each year. We need to formulate a national strategy with anti-crime agencies to eradicate these appalling and audacious thefts.”
“I will also push to continue driving up standards and textiles quality and would like to thank Ian Woods for his hard work over the past three years, he will definitely be a hard act to follow.”
Kerbside collection
Another point Ms Yarney spoke about was the issue of textiles being collected on the kerbside. This is one of the measures to be introduced by 2025 as part of the EU circular economy package, which was signed into the Official Journal earlier this week (see letsrecycle.com story).
She explained that until there is a system which can ensure that the quality of materials being collected is high enough, there is no point in introducing it.
“There needs to be a system in which the quality of material is sufficient, until then there is not much point in doing so.
“I also think more and more companies will get involved in the field. Textiles is a growing industry and this will only encourage that if done properly.”
Three years
The TRA appoints a new president every three years.
The current president, Ian Woods, took over from Ross Barry, whose three-year term at the helm of the trade association came to an end in March 2015 (see letsrecycle.com story)
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