Confusion around whether used clothes are waste or not remains a problem for the textiles recycling sector, the audience at the Textiles Recycling Conference heard yesterday (5 October).
Director of trade and environment at BIR, Ross Bartley
Ross Bartley, trade & environment director at the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), voiced his dismay over the response by the European Commission to a European Parliament question about the laws – applied differently across EU member states – concerning collecting mixed clothing.
The answer, which Mr Bartley said “I am not happy about at all,” implies that even if mixed clothing is sorted after collection it would still be classified as waste.
Mr Bartley said: “It seems like from 1998 right through to now, there still isn’t a grasp or a clarity of what is waste in the first place and what you can do to get that waste into a product, or clarity over reuse and actually supporting reuse.”
Calling the answer a ‘conundrum,’ Mr Bartley commented that “Whatever you do, you don’t seem to be able to get out of this legislative trap.”
However, commenting on Brexit and the announcement that EU laws will be transposed to the UK after which they can be reviewed, he suggested that “it would then be possible to start tidying this [waste question] up, because it certainly hasn’t been tidied up by the competent authorities and the European Commission.”
East Africa
The first morning session of the conference also heard from Dr Einir Young. Director of sustainability at Bangor University, who highlighted the problems in the textile recycling market in East Africa and the ban on imports that was announced by the EAC (see letsrecycle.com story).
Dr Enir Young called for an ‘honest, open dialogue’
Dr Young called for constructive dialogue and a level playing field, commenting that “We want the trade to continue but is the way we are trading helping our trading partners?”
She added that “An honest, open dialogue is required for true collaboration to happen.”
She suggested that there could be ways for East African Countries to work with European countries, possibly by manufacturing some products for Europe and also in reusing some material for production of goods.
Bag2School
The afternoon session saw Ian Woods, manager at Next Best Clothing and Talat Afzal, recycling awareness officer at Bury council, discuss Bag2School – a bespoke collection scheme for schools.
Mr Woods said the scheme helps children understand the textile recycling process and “gets them thinking about how important reuse is.”
Ms Afzal, who is working with schools and Bag2Schools, said the scheme is a “wonderful way of showing [children] how much more we can reuse, reduce and recycle,” as well as reducing disposal costs for councils.
Commenting on the importance of behavioural change, Mrs Afzal said the scheme “creates a culture within schools,” to think about recycling creatively and help educate parents.
The post Waste confusion remains in textiles recycling, says BIR director appeared first on letsrecycle.com.
Source: letsrecycle.com General
