Speaking to letsrecycle.com today, TRA secretary Alan Wheeler said that underestimates of how much material was produced by households was stopping councils from targeting the specialist waste stream.
” If local authorities realised how much they could potentially capture, there would be more interest. “
– Alan Wheeler, Textile Recycling Association
The comment came after Defra's minister in the House of Lords, Lord Rooker, revealed the latest figures for textile waste are from 2003. Lord Rooker was answering a written question on textile recycling put by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer.
Mr Rooker said that in 2003, the amount of clothes thrown out in the UK was estimated at 1.1 million tonnes, but suggested the figure had increased since then and “is thought” to be still increasing.
But the TRA said the amount of clothes being thrown out by householders was much more than 1.1 million tonnes a year.
He said local authorities should see the value of textile recycling for contributing to their tonnage-based recycling targets.
Mr Wheeler said: “If local authorities realised how much they could potentially capture, there would be more interest. The government assumes that textiles make up 3% of the waste stream but up to 6% could be produced and disposed of by different means.”
He added: “In 2003 we did our own study and there was a huge disparity between how many textiles were bought and how many were thrown away.”
| Year | Textiles collected from English households (t) |
| 1999/00 | 39,000 |
| 2000/01 | 41,000 |
| 2001/02 | 42,000 |
| 2002/03 | 54,000 |
| 2003/04 | 58,000 |
Strategy
In his written answer, Lord Rooker said only 262,000 tonnes, or 14% of textile consumption in the UK, was reused or recycled. But his data showed just 58,000 tonnes of waste textiles were collected by English local authorities in 2003.
He promised: “As part of its ongoing work on the review of the waste strategy, Defra is considering how to increase this figure.”
Mr Wheeler called on the minister to consult more widely with the textile recycling industry if he wished to make increasing collections a reality.
He said: “To increase textile recycling the government needs to introduce more kerbside schemes and bring banks. It also needs to work with the experts on how material is collected, sourced and sorted – to help create more sustainable campaigns.”
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In his response to Baroness Miller, Lord Rooker provided estimates for five years up to 2003/04 for the amount of textiles collected by local authorities in England (see table above right).
Lord Rooker conceded: “A large proportion of textile reuse and recycling by households is made directly to jumble sales and charity shops and, therefore, would not be recorded in these local authority results.”
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