UK reliance on foreign textile sorting “frightening”

Speaking at a meeting of the Bureau of International Recycling in Brussels last week, TRA chairman Terry Ralph said that if markets in Eastern Europe and the Middle East failed, there would be a shortage of UK sorting capacity.

” A plethora of British sorting and bailing machinery has been exported to emerging markets, leaving us to wonder what would happen should one or more of these new markets fail. “
– Terry Ralph, TRA
The chairman said that textile prices were already tailing off in Eastern Europe, and relocating was not proving as beneficial to some companies as they at first thought.

Addressing delegates, he said: “A frightening consideration in this period is that a plethora of British sorting and bailing machinery has been exported to emerging markets, leaving us to wonder what would happen should one or more of these new markets fail.

“It could be that the reduced sorting capacity would make it impossible for the remaining British companies to cope with the arising from both local government and charitable sources,” he added.

The comment follows a warning from leading textile recycler Elliot Cohen last month that cheap labour in Eastern Europe could put an end to textile sorting in the UK (see letsrecycle.com story).

Price
Mr Ralph added his concern that jobs were moving abroad, and explained that, with fewer overheads, such companies were driving up the price of UK rags.

He said: “It has been possible for some of these price increased to be passed on to customers in Sub Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia but the increases have by no means kept up with the price increases of original. We feel like a ceiling has been reached for many of our foreign customers, and these markets are no longer able to face more price increases.”

However, despite criticising the current situation for textile recycler's, Mr Ralph was adamant that the textile recycling industry would remain strong.

He said: “Although the speech might seem a bit pessimistic, the demise of the UK reclaimed textile industry has been prophesised in nearly every year of the almost 50 years I have been involved in the trade. We are still here and hope to be for many years to come.”