Memorandum by the Salvation Army Trading
Co Ltd (SATCoL) and The Nonwovens Innovation and Research Institute
(NIRI) based at University of Leeds
1. SATCoL is the trading arm of The Salvation
Army in the UK and has been an active and innovative member of
the textile recycling industry for the last 16 years. These comments
will, therefore, be confined to this area although some of the
concepts may be transferable to other materials and industries.
BACKGROUND
2. The textile recycling industry is operating
in much the same way as it has for the last 20, 30, 40 years or
more; (collect, sort, distribute, dispose). However, as with the
rest of the waste industry they have, to use a medical analogy,
been treating the symptoms rather than tackling the real cause
of the disease.
3. SATCoL has been working with NIRI Ltd,
a University of Leeds spin-out company and Oakdene Hollins Ltd
for the last 2-3 years to try to identify the disease and the
root cause. (Recycling of Low Grade Clothing Waste; Defra Contract
Reference: WRT152, submitted October 2006 and the source of some
of the data in this submission).
4. We noticed that, as a nation, we concentrate
so much on waste that we miss the point that it is the original
design that defines this waste. In short, we design most products
with a cradle-to-grave approach, which often translates as a cradle-to-bin-approach.
5. We postulate that if products were designed
with a cradle to cradle, rather than a cradle to grave, approach
we would begin to create more "sustainable" garments
providing other options for use at the end of life. In terms of
the full life cycle these products could, therefore, have several
"lives". This would include: re-use, recycling back
in to fibre and thence in to new clothing products, up-cycling
(into more valuable products) and also, provide a means of extending
the life of existing products before they are disposed of.
6. We believe that if this concept was embraced
by product designers, materials scientists, engineers and the
retail sector, and therefore, "handled" correctly, waste
collection costs could also be reduced as the originator of the
product would need to take a greater responsibility for their
design and engineering decisions.
7. A consequence of this could be that retailers
or manufacturers might be required to collect their own used products
from customers prior to reprocessing and remanufacture. The end
of life vehicle directive in the automotive industry is an example
of change that has led to improved sustainability through revised
product engineering and design practices.
8. To significantly improve environmental
sustainability at the end of life of our clothes, better linkage
between design, technical and retail decision-making is required.
This will impact on raw material selection, fabric manufacturing,
product design and assembly and retail specifications.
UNDERSTANDING TODAY'S
SYMPTOMS
9. However, it is instructive to understand
the symptoms and how we might approach them today as this will
assist in developing a cure. Table 1 summarises the UK's buying
and disposal routes for clothing.
Table 1
DISPOSAL ROUTES FOR CLOTHING
|
| `000 tonnes | %
|
|
| Sales (2003) | 1,865 |
|
| Thrown in rubbish bin | 1,165
| 63% |
| Collected for reuse and recycling | 324
| 17% |
| Reused in UK | 41 |
|
| Exported from UK | 200 |
|
| Recycled in UK | 62 | 3%
|
| Unusable | 21 |
|
|
Source: Recycling of Low Grade Clothing Waste, DEFRA, WRT152, October 2006.
| | |
10. To highlight just two or three of the lines of this
table.
11. Simply put, each of us in the UK buys about £600
of clothes per annum and discards £400 worth!
12. Today our unwanted clothes are discarded and reclaimed
in a variety of ways as outlined below but all have their challenges
and do not address the root cause of the problem.
Reuse
13. The "value" stores today account for about
25 per cent of UK clothing sales and therefore, compete directly
with the Charity Shops on price. This means that today only 50
per cent of a charity shops profits come from the sale of second
hand clothing.
14. In addition these value products do not have the
durability needed for secondary re-use. So this route will not
treat the symptoms for much longer.
15. However, large quantities of clothes are exported
for reuse to "developing" countries and sold at prices
commensurate with that countries cost of living. However, as many
of these nations now belong to the EU it is expected that their
affluence will grow and the demand for second hand goods will
be transferred firstly to the new "value" store products
and then to more durable quality items. This means that today
trading is being carried out in a potentially declining market—this
of course may also eventually jeopardise the infra-structure for
clothing collection in the UK.
Restyle
16. Several organisations have tried to commercialise
the concept of adapting second-hand clothing into "new"
items and many beautiful pieces of clothing have been produced.
But due to economics (this is extremely labour intensive and only
really works as a "cottage industry" with minimal overheads)
less than 1 per cent of the available discarded items are used.
It is, however, a very useful PR tool, but for practical purposes,
commercially it really is another ineffective medicine!
Recycle
17. The textile recycling industry in the UK used to
employ tens of thousands of workers, but today it has just a few
hundred. Much is down to economics but decreasing availability
of certain "raw" materials, such as wool and the increasing
use of mixed man-made blends also play their part. In this industry,
clothing is mechanically separated (pulling) and fibres are extracted
from the fabrics to enable industrial products such as mattress
padding, carpet backing, automotive sound insulation, furniture
padding and wiper cloths to be made; but only 62,000 tonnes per
annum is used in this way, hardly a drop in the ocean when you
consider the 1.2 million tonnes potentially available. Although
garments are sorted to some extent prior to the pulling process,
the result is a highly heterogeneous mixture of different fibre
types and colours, which is of course a consequence of the original
garment design and limitations in the pulling machinery.
18. Today there has been a serious decline in mature
markets, and a decrease in suitable raw materials for the traditional
markets mentioned above. Much of this is due to an increase in
the consumption of synthetic fibres in value-clothing products,
which enter the waste stream, difficulties in garment disassembly,
and extremely limited technical innovation within the recycling
industry.
19. Some initiatives have also been developed to enable
the recycling of synthetic fibres such as polyester extracted
from garments back in to fibre-form for producing new garments
by polymer extrusion; however, this involves exporting raw materials
over long-distances to access Far Eastern manufacturers.
CREATING NEW
MARKETS
20. NIRI at the University of Leeds successfully developed
laboratory samples from non-wearable low quality garments extracted
from the current garment waste stream in six main areas—some
of these provide potential for up-cycling of clothing waste into
more lucrative market areas.
21. There is, however, a lack of investment in this area,
possibly due to deficiencies in our understanding of this complex
subject but the momentum needs to be maintained. From this work
it is quite clear that we need to treat our waste raw materials
like virgin raw materials in terms of the engineering and design
of new products.
SPECIFICATIONS AND
FORMULATIONS
22. The main factors influencing the use/selection of
virgin materials are:
23. Currently, in general terms, the selection of raw
materials and the design of consumer products made from these
raw materials (eg clothing) are centred on meeting the specific
requirements in terms of appearance, technical performance and
economics ie cost that determines fitness for purpose in use.
Generally, there is little or no attention paid to the consequences
of these decisions at the end of use. When virgin raw materials
are considered for manufacture there are complex specifications
and formulations that have to be met to meet product performance
requirements. When dealing with waste fibre materials intended
for relatively high value products, the same considerations should
apply. At present, waste fibre materials tend to be poorly specified
in quantitative terms but this can be addressed.
24. These are just some of the technical considerations:
—
contamination—unwanted chemicals, particles and debris;
—
consistency of supply—volume, fibre blends, conformance
to specifications; and
25. Owing to the heterogeneous mixture of collected second-hand
clothing addressing these technical considerations is a challenge
but is not intractable. To stimulate greater demand for recycled
fibre raw materials we will need to upgrade our recycling processes
and improve UK collection and sorting procedures so that we can
apply similar specifications as for virgin raw materials.
26. For example we will need more complex sorting regimes
based on fibre specifications rather than appearance.
27. This means we will:
—
evolve smart labelling systems to aid automation of these processes
but also to add traceability to a garment—enabling the source
of the original raw material, processes used etc. to be identified.
This is important to major retailers wishing to increase the amount
of recycled fibre they use; and
28. But of course all of this is a short term stop gap.
REQUIRED INTERVENTIONS
29. We need to completely re-examine how we design and
fabricate clothing by considering their primary, secondary and
even tertiary uses. Earlier we indicated that one of the barriers
to effective recycling is the difficulty in disassembling a garment
to produce a homogeneous product for further industrial use. We
need to consider alternative manufacturing methods, opportunities
for making garments composed of a single fibre composition rather
than a blend, different methods of garment construction and assembly—thus
fuel a change from cradle to grave to cradle to cradle thinking.
30. There are of course numerous factors that influence
the true resource management of textiles but nearly all are influenced
by design decisions. To instigate more effective resource management
we need to establish that recycled fibres, if extracted, processed
and specified properly for use in new products, can be a valuable
resource. From our work so far, we believe that performance products
made from recycled fibres are on the horizon.
WAYS TO
ADDRESS KNOWLEDGE
GAPS
31. Establishing approaches for increasing the homogeneity
of fibre composition (targeting 100 per cent mono-compositions)
to simplify sorting and end of life fibre separation and recycling
processes.
32. Development of cost-effective processes for separating
and reprocessing of cotton-PET blend fabrics and other heterogeneous
fibre blends containing two or more dissimilar polymers.
33. Development of methods to reduce the impact of colouration,
fabric chemical finishes and coatings (eg water repellents and
flame retardants) on the fibre separation, reprocessing and recycling
processes for the constituent fibres.
34. Proof of concept studies on the use of recycled fibre
or polymer components as feed stocks for industrial manufacturing
processes eg fibre extrusion and textile processing.
35. New garment design techniques that consider both the
cost-effective assembly of the garment prior to the point of sale
and its disassembly at the end of life. This will need to consider
alternative methods of garment construction and approaches to
seaming and joining, stitch less joining methods, potential for
induced failure of components at the end of life, automated rapid
assembly and disassembly techniques.
36. Alternative techniques for constructing embroidered
logos that facilitate rapid removal at the end of life by practical
means.
37. Development of SMART labelling systems that ensure
in-use and disposal protocols are communicated to maximise opportunities
for disassembly, reuse and remanufacture at the end of life.
October 2007
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