Speaking at the BIR convention in London yesterday Terry Ralph, president of the British Textile Recycling Association, outlined that if the government continued to bring in rules and regulations which meant increased costs for recyclers it was likely that many would move to countries offering better opportunities.
He said: “More and more traders are becoming despondent especially in the light of an ever increasing raft of rules and regulations emanating almost daily from either the EU or our own government.
“Sometimes one wonders whether these are intended to drive us out of business or to migrate countries where the climate, both business and weather, is more conducive to creating a profit making business.”
Europe
Mr Ralph's comments were supported by the president of the Textile division of the BIR, Frithjof W. Schepke who claimed that the rest of Europe were also facing similar problems. He said: “I don't see a future for textile recycling along the lines that it always has operated in Europe. The only way to carry on is for all our companies to relocate to cheap labour countries where there is less bureaucratic red tape.”
And Mr Ralph also noted that some companies had already begun moving. “Some sizeable UK businesses have started to move part of their businesses to the Middle East states such as Dubai where factories are inexpensive to rent and taxes on profits are almost non-existent.
“One very large UK producer has made some of his UK staff redundant and is in the process of moving his business abroad, along with two partners who have been until now separate UK sorting entities,” He said.
Cheaper competition
These claims come at a time when the European textile industry is struggling to compete with cheaper clothes form America and China. According to Philip Race of GBU textiles the poor exchange rate of the Dollar makes clothes from America much more appealing and UK cannot compete on price.
Talking about the problem of new clothing from China, Mr Ralph said that there were two negative effects for Europe. “Firstly it reduces the traditional quality of our exports and it is also being sold in developing countries at lower prices than we are able to sell our second hand goods.”
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