Examination of Witnesses (Questions 527-539)
Mr Mike Barry, Mr Brian McCarthy, Mr Paul Ozanne
and Mr Alan Wheeler
4 MARCH 2008
Q527 Chairman: Good morning. Can
I start off by asking you to what extent do product designers,
materials scientists, engineers and the retail sector work together
to consider the full life-cycle impacts of textiles? Are there
barriers to co-operation between the disciplines? Perhaps I could
ask this at the same time. How do you try within these processes
to be less dependent upon virgin materials? Obviously these are
considerations that affect the whole waste chain and resource
efficiency.
Mr Wheeler: May I say thank you very much for
inviting me here today, my Lord Chairman. I am Alan Wheeler from
the Textile Recycling Association. I have thought about this.
In my experience, or from the experience of the members of our
trade association, I think that clothing is not recycled in the
sense that people really understand. Most clothing that is not
suitable for reuse in the first instance is not recycled back
into clothes generally speaking, but is converted or put into
lower-grade items, so wiping cloths, mattress fillings, blankets
and that kind of thing. There does not seem to be much completion
of the recycling loop, when it comes to sourcing fibres at the
manufacturing stage. We also find that the quality of the clothing
that is coming through to our members is on the decline, which
makes it harder to reuse; also the complexity of the garments
that we are seeing coming through is increasing. It does suggest
that there is not much thought about how recyclable an item is
at the end of its useful life. I think that the lack of understanding
of the life-cycle impacts of garments is illustrated quite graphically
by the EU Draft Textiles Products Background Report—a very
catchy title!—which is a draft green public procurement
policy document, and it makes no reference whatsoever to manufacturers
or retailers procuring textiles using recycled fibres. I think
that needs to be addressed.
Mr Ozanne: We have noticed few signs across
the retail sector that there is an awareness of textile waste
management issues. We have also noticed far more concern in the
packaging and food waste area. However, I do feel that sustainability
is an issue which is now more likely to be addressed because of
its relative importance. For argument's sake, the recent M&S
move to link up with Oxfam highlights very good issues. The barriers,
as I see them? UK consumption is high and increasing and 90 per
cent of the clothes we consume are imported; hence significant
impacts occur outside the UK, over which there is little or no
control. Secondly, the clothing supply chain is complex, global,
and characterised by subcontractors—a lot of these from
the developing world—and the use of migrant workers, which
poses traceability problems. The third barrier is the emergence
of "fast fashion", which at the moment makes up 20 per
cent of the UK market. This has doubled in six years. This trend
contributes significantly to the quantities of low-grade clothing,
which are difficult to displace.
Q528 Chairman: I would just like
to follow this up. It is the designers who design these, who source
these. It is the companies that employ these people. I realise
that you are at one end of the chain and Mr Wheeler is in another
part, but are they not driven by cost considerations? They want
to provide cheap clothes that can be thrown away. Is there something
that could be done there to slow down the cycle of redundancy?
Mr Ozanne: I have to confess that, on a personal
level, I do have some concern when my 30-year-old daughter buys
five or six dresses from Matalan, wears them half a dozen times,
and then throws them away without washing them—on the pretext
that she is being environmentally careful! However, that material
will be of low quality and therefore low value. If that is coupled
with the amount of material we are able to recycle—I think
it is about 3 per cent, 62,000 tonnes, that we are able to recycle
as a nation—it will inevitably either drive the price of
the reused clothing market down, or it will go to landfill.
Mr Wheeler: Can I just clarify that the 62,000
tonnes is approximately the amount that has actually gone to recycling,
but we collect around 300,000 tonnes a year for reuse and recycling—which
is still only about an eighth of what we are buying each year.
There is still an awful lot of clothing and textiles out there
that is not being collected for recycling or reuse.
Q529 Lord Lewis of Newnham: This
term "fast fashion", what does it mean? It is used quite
often in these particular documents, and I am not clear what it
does mean.
Mr Ozanne: I am not an expert but I think the
type of fashion would be in certain cheap supermarkets, clothing
chains. The garments are quick to produce; the turnover is very
fast; and the length of time they are able to be worn is very
short. Certainly not the uniform I am standing in here, I expect
it to last ten years. Going back to my daughter's situation—and
I hope she is not looking in!—she would not expect to wear
a garment more than three or four times.
Q530 Chairman: Mr Barry?
Mr Barry: Let me offer some views as a retailer.
Traditionally, clothing retailing has been characterised by two
seasons: there was a summer season or what we call spring, and
an autumn collection for winter. What has happened now with fast
fashion is that you see up to ten or 12 different seasons in a
year. Rather than just selling the same clothing for six months,
retailers will try to change it every month. To do that, you have
to have a very fast turn-round on clothing production. You have
to have it designed quickly; brought to the UK quickly; sold quickly;
and people will hope that people will wear it for a month and
then change again. That is not how the M&S model is built.
The M&S model is built upon quality; but clearly there has
been a huge increase in the UK market share for fast fashion over
the last few years.
Q531 Lord Lewis of Newnham: In general,
it is of a lower quality?
Mr Barry: I have to be hugely careful here.
M&S has fought hard to preserve its quality requirements in
the marketplace. I have heard voices in the outside world that
have said that fast fashion can compromise quality, yes.
Q532 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
But am I not right that the real cost of quite a lot of textiles
has fallen substantially over the course of the last 20 years,
say, because of the advent of cheap textiles that are produced
in, particularly, China?
Mr Barry: There has been a huge amount of price
deflation in the marketplace; something like 25 per cent in the
last four or five years. That brings benefits to UK plc and to
UK consumers. We have to be very honest about that in terms of
pressures upon inflation and in terms of access to decent clothing
for the vast majority of the UK population; but it also drives
an environmental challenge. I would like to pick up on the word
that Paul used here. Traceability is the big problem when it comes
to clothing. M&S is unique in the UK and one of the few in
the world that can trace back beyond the primary factory that
produces its clothing, to the dye-house, to the spinning mill
and, increasingly, we are going back into the raw material field.
Unlike food, where we can go back literally to the cow—the
individual cow that has been used in a ready-meal we can trace
right back—for clothing it is still new; so cotton is sourced
as a commodity. There are huge environmental and social impacts
in cotton production. Apart from Fairtrade and organic—we
have bought a third of the world's supply of Fairtrade cotton
but this is only 10 per cent of the cotton M&S uses; 90 per
cent of the cotton that M&S uses is still bought as a commodity.
We still cannot go back to the field and dictate standards. Not
many people can go back to the actual dye-house and look at how
the environmental impacts of that are controlled. It is actually
very difficult to start looking at the total social environment
footprint and how you reduce it, until you get that basic traceability.
Mr McCarthy: The answer to your question is
that there is insufficient interaction between these people. There
are two initiatives that I would like to mention briefly, which
hopefully will start to move this interaction a stage further.
TechniTex is the textiles and clothing network within Materials
KTN; and within the KTN there is the Materials and Design Exchange.
One initiative we are putting together next month is a conference
here in London on sustainability, which will feature the Defra
road map on clothing sustainability. We are therefore actively
trying to engage with our design academic colleagues within the
London School of Fashion and the Royal College of Art. The second
joint initiative we have made to encourage interaction between
designers and the technologists is to have six so-called Spark
Awards. These are cash grants which will enable interaction between
academics and designers who are looking to embed technology into
their fashion garments. Two initiatives which will hopefully start
to get further interaction to take place.
Q533 Lord Methuen: I think that you
have already covered to some degree Defra's consulting with stakeholders
to develop a sustainable clothing road map. Would you like to
amplify on that? You have mentioned it briefly.
Mr McCarthy: I did. I am participating in the
next meeting at the end of this month, with the various stakeholders
of the road map. There are a couple of points that I would like
to make. I think that the consideration must include the use of
textiles into other products. During a visit to Israel, for example,
textile products are being recycled and introduced into pipes
for use in industry. There are other streams, therefore, where
this waste potentially should be looked at. The other thing that
I think we should look at across different industrial sectors
is the actual specification of the textile products. Are they
over-specified in terms of the use of virgin product, where recycled
material could actually be used? The final point I would make
is that the study also needs to look at some fairly specialised
applications. For example, there are military textiles which need
to be recycled; there are medical garments from the NHS—quite
considerable quantities of these; also, there is a major problem
reflected in the use of personal protective equipment. These are
additional factors which we hope to build into the Defra road
map.
Mr Ozanne: I would like to support what my colleague
has been saying. The Salvation Army Trading Company very much
welcomes involvement in the road map. There are three points that
we would like to raise. First, we do desperately need further
research in the recycling of clothing when they can no longer
be used as clothing. Secondly, we need a definition of what is
actually waste as far as textiles are concerned. The Salvation
Army is currently exporting a huge amount of clothing to Eastern
Europe, which is classified as waste even though we know that
the majority of it, possibly up to 80 per cent, will be re-worn.
We would therefore like to see a redefinition of what comprises
waste as far as textiles are concerned. The third thing we would
like to see is further research into the production and design,
so that they can be made more easily recyclable. We are looking
at the composition of it, the way it is put together and can it
be disassembled very quickly? However, there is a sort of Catch
22 situation. What do we need to do first? Create the new technological
markets so that we know what we want, or create the raw materials
that the new technology might need? The last thing is that we
need to raise public awareness of the advantages of buying good-quality
clothes—both for the environmental aspect and indeed the
prudence of it. Good-quality clothes last a lot longer. It is
a rich person who can afford fast-fashion clothing.
Mr Wheeler: I agree with everything that Paul
Ozanne and Brian McCarthy have said. I have three points that
I would like to see from the sustainable clothing road map. It
seems inevitable that, if we are to meet the objectives of the
Waste Strategy for England, more clothing will have to be collected.
As I mentioned, we currently collect 300,000 tonnes of clothing
and textiles each year. Obviously we need to look at how we will
increase the amount that is collected. Before we can do that,
however, we need to secure new markets. Currently the textile
reclamation traders' buying price for reusable and recycling grades
is very high, and many would say that it is too high. The market
price at which they are able to sell their goods after collection
and reprocessing is not sustainable in the long run and it is
creating a big problem. If we were to increase the supply of all
grades of textiles as we increase collection, it is likely to
lead to a lowering of selling prices, which itself will create
more problems. This is particularly the case if it is not to be
accompanied by a lowering of the prices which the textile collectors
have to pay when they source their goods. Also, the demand in
the UK for recycling grades is currently very low; so we need
to look at what alternatives are out there. Paul touched on that,
and he also mentioned the fact that garments need to be designed
with recycling in mind. I would just touch upon the definition
of textiles and whether they are waste or not. Last year, we met
with Dr Caroline Jackson, MEP and rapporteur, in Brussels and
we managed to get textiles on Article 11 of the Waste Framework
Directive. If that goes through, there would be a Europe-wide
definition of what is and what is not considered waste and it
would offer greater clarity. Unfortunately, I think the matter
has now gone on to the back burner. I would like to see textiles
brought back to the forefront under Article 11. If we could get
that, that would be fantastic.
Mr McCarthy: I have two very brief points. The
first is that there are technology breakthroughs. Hyosung in Korea
have recently announced the use of recycled nylon for use in ladies'
lingerie. This is the first application in those areas. Also,
taking up Paul's point, there are new markets, new demands, for
waste synthetic fibre. There is a UK artificial sports surfaces
manufacturer who is desperately trying to find good-grade recycled
materials. There are developing markets in new areas, therefore.
Q534 Lord Haskel: I just want to
go back to one point that Mr Barry raised about traceability.
You were saying that Marks & Spencer is unique in that they
can trace back the way the fabric has been processed, dyed, finished,
et cetera. Does that mean that, as far as the chain of processing
is concerned, we are going to have to leave it to commercial pressures,
or the rising commodity prices, or just what the market will stand
as far as sustainability is concerned, or are there some other
steps that we could take to try and make the production process
more sustainable?
Mr Barry: Given that most of the clothing sold
in the UK, 95 per cent of it, is made outside the UK, it is very
difficult for you to regulate or to legislate for, to drive business
to have better traceability. We have seen in the last two or three
years that there are the beginnings of competitive pressure in
the marketplace to get better traceability. People like Nike are
doing very good stuff; the sports shoes manufacturers are doing
very good stuff; M&S is. The one-eyed man in the land of the
blind—I will be quite honest about that. You are now seeing
other clothing retailers responding to that and feeling that,
competitively, they cannot not have a position; and you are beginning
to see changes happening. I struggle to see how you would control
it by anything other than voluntary measures, though, to be honest.
You have such disparate supply chains involved, across 50 or 60
countries in the world, all with very different expectations.
Having said all that, I want to be very careful that we do not
get too UK-centric about this and too arrogant in the UK. Some
of the very best innovations that we are now seeing in the world
to do with clothing are coming out of the Koreas, the Chinas,
the Indias, the United States. There are some fantastic new materials
being developed there; so I do not want us to assume that, just
because clothing is produced globally, there are any amount of
problems overseas but not solutions as well.
Lord May of Oxford: I have a really unhelpful
question/statement. I feel that there is a fundamental lack of
contact with reality in this session we are having now; because
almost everyone in Britain has more clothes than they need and
we are talking with people who, by and large, are representative
of industries that want to sell us even more clothes. At some
point in the morning one might at least voice the feeling—with
no ill-feeling towards anybody—that this is a ludicrous
conversation we are having.
Chairman: I think that we have more clothes
than we have time at the moment!
Q535 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Can I pick up this technical issue? There are all kinds of new
technical textiles that are being developed from a very wide range
of materials, with technical fibres being produced from polymers,
metals, ceramics, coatings, membranes and various composites.
What advantages and limitations do these textiles have compared
to traditional textiles, in terms of durability and waste reduction?
How widespread is the use of these technical textiles? Do suppliers
and retailers want to use them? Are they encouraged to use them?
Mr McCarthy: It is important to realise that
technical textiles are textiles where the performance is more
important than the aesthetics. That is the key thing. After this
session I have a number of examples which I will pass on to the
Committee. I think that it is important to try and realise the
breadth of application of technical textiles. For example, by
2010 there will be approximately 35 kilos of textiles in every
single car manufactured, and that is an increasing trend. Technical
textiles are important because they provide multi-functionality
and the applications are quite considerable. I have one example.
Low & Bonar in Scotland have a very successful 24/7 business
and they are reporting record profits this year. They are weaving
aluminium and selling industrial, large quantities of aluminium
to Holland for their large greenhouse, crop-growing operations.
A very specialised agricultural textile use, therefore, in those
specific areas. I have mentioned automotive textiles. The likes
of Toyota are looking at using nano-engineered clays, to be incorporated
directly into the polymer. Why? Because they have greater inherent
flame-retardance and also are lighter. It is an element leading
towards lightweighting. However, the diversity of technical textiles
is considerable. I have brought one example along. It is rope
technology, but it is basically yarn formation followed by braiding,
and applications. This particular one is quite interesting because,
manufactured in the UK, it is actually a transport textile. It
is an aircraft load support harness. One of the areas the company
is looking at is how it can reduce the weight. Because of fuel
usage in aircraft, how can it reduce the weight but maintain the
same safety, embedded strength characteristics? When this is exposed
to light, it starts to degrade. They are therefore looking at
the technology of how to reduce the weight of this component but
still have the built-in safety element.
Q536 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Do you think that there are technical barriers that need to be
overcome in order to develop these technical textiles any further?
What research is being undertaken to address these?
Mr McCarthy: There is significant research taking
place in the UK. For example, in the area of medical textiles
considerable efforts are being addressed to the growth of cell
therapies, stem cells, using textile tissue scaffolds. There is
significant research proposed now, this year, to be funded by
the Technology Strategy Board. In other areas, there are significant
developments in terms of integrating electronics into clothing.
That raises new issues about standardisation; new issues about
how these products can be recycled; and how the electronic element
can be separated as it comes to end of life. However, there is
considerable expertise in the UK addressing these particular areas.
Q537 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
You were saying that these tend to be specialist areas, higher-priced
areas, and one sees it for example in the sports area, where there
are a whole lot of special materials.
Mr McCarthy: The technology drivers are coming
from the sportswear industry; they are coming from M&S; the
Bagir suit with the integrated iPod controls. It is coming from
the military; it is coming from medical devices; it is coming
from sportswear. These are the key technology driver areas.
Q538 Lord Haskel: For the record,
My Lord Chairman, I should say that I am the Honorary President
of TechniTex. Moving on to the Salvation Army, however, it seems
to be the only organisation that has been recycling textiles for
a very long time. You said in your note to us that it was 30 or
40 years, and I think that is a matter of congratulation. However,
you do say that the textile recycling industry has declined in
recent years and that only a small proportion of the potentially
available material is actually reused. You have told us a little
about why you think this is so, but could you say how you think
this might be changed and what more could be done?
Mr Ozanne: If we look at the history briefly,
in the 1960s and 1970s there were thousands of people employed
in the textile recycling industry. At that time about 90 per cent
of the collections were recycled, mainly because people had worn
them out. As the UK residents became more affluent, there came
a shift from wearing clothes until their end of life to changing
them from choice or fashion. Recently, this was further fuelled
by the fact that we seem to be a borrow-to-spend nation. This
has seen a shift from the practice of collecting clothes for recycling
to collecting clothes because they are still in extremely good
condition and they are valued to be re-worn. Therefore, their
value far exceeds that which can be obtained for recycling grades.
In practice, I would postulate that the reuse market is the only
way at the moment to make clothing collections viable, because
the other grades have little or no market value.
Mr Wheeler: Can I just clarify a few things?
The Textile Recycling Association has been in existence since
1913 and a number of our members have been trading for pretty
much that length of time. They are family-run businesses that
have been handed down through the generations. The first example
of textile recycling that we can trace in the UK is people collecting
textiles for recycling in the 18th century for shoddy. The textile
recycling industry has therefore been going on for a very long
time. I also wanted to clarify that, yes, there has been a trend
towards the decline in reprocessing in the UK, but actually the
amount of clothing that is being collected for recycling is generally
speaking on the increase slightly. It has risen a little, year
on year, and certainly up until 2005 when we last looked at the
data. The amount that is actually being collected is therefore
on the increase, and I just wanted to clarify that. The other
thing is that we did a survey of our members, as part of an EU-wide
funded project in 2005. We looked at the state of the UK textile
recycling industry and at the different barriers that were preventing
us from expanding our collections, or that were presenting barriers
to trading. At the time, our members estimated that about 55 per
cent of clothing was still suitable for reuse; so the majority
is still suitable for reuse rather than recycling—although
it is on the decline, I would hasten to add. However, I would
be very happy to make that information available to you: about
the state of the UK industry and also the published EU project
OUVERTES—the name of the European-funded project—which
also identifies what barriers existed at that point in time. I
have other suggestions as to why there are physical limitations
as to the amount currently being collected in the UK and I will
try to summarise them very briefly. The charity shops have a limited
capacity. That is one of the three main points. There are 7,000
charity shops; they probably collect around 120,000 tonnes each
year. If we are going to collect more, there is obviously a physical
limit there. The number of textile banks could be increased, but
there are problems there. We possibly need to look at the reinstatement
of the FORT Agreement, the Forum on Recycled Textiles Agreement,
which the industry did sign up to some years ago and which worked
successfully for a number of years, but which has now fallen by
the wayside. All signatories to this agreed to have one textile
bank operator at each site and that reduces the environmental
impact of collections. I am sure that you have been to supermarkets
where you have seen several different operators operating at the
same bank, and it does not make environmental sense for that to
be happening. It would also help if there was a greater transparency
in how the industry works. I think it is fair to say that if you
ask a member of the public what they think happens to their item
of clothing once it is donated to a charity shop or through a
textile bank, they probably think that either it is sold in the
charity shop itself or, if it is not sold, it is transported by
the charity, free of charge, and then handed out to the needy
in developing countries. I am surmising there, but that is certainly
how I used to see the industry. If we said to people, "The
items of clothing are sold and it is good for business; good for
the environment; good for employment in this country; good for
employment in Africa, in Asia and Eastern Europe" many would
be surprised but there are many things to be celebrated from it,
and I think that greater transparency would help us to promote
textile collection in this country.
Q539 Lord Haskel: The recycling industry,
the shoddy business, in this country has always been a very low-quality
business, of course. Where there is a real high-class, top-quality
business is in Prato in Italy. The secret there, as I understand
it, is the detailed sorting of the fabrics and the way the industry
is organised. Do you see a possibility of upgrading the possibilities
here in Britain to that quality, or should we just concentrate
on sending our waste to Prato and leaving them to sort it and
deal with it?
Mr Wheeler: The bottom line, as with anything,
is that it has to pay. If we can make it pay, then it can be done
in the UK. The businesses here are probably some of the best sorters
in the world, but it has to be worth its while. Currently, with
prices as they are, people are stopping sorting in the UK. A number
of traders, including the Salvation Army/Kettering Textiles here,
now export unsorted, and a number of our members are doing exactly
the same—because it is just not financially viable at the
moment. However, if it can be made to pay then, yes, I think that
we could do it in this country. There are very good examples here
in London where people are doing excellent sorting operations
and employing hundreds of people. So it can be demonstrated, yes.
Mr Ozanne: I ought to make this point, in defence
of the Salvation Army Trading Company. The first call on any of
our clothing is humanitarian: the point of need in this country,
through our 800 community units. Prisoners being released after
a life term; we sent tonnes of clothing into Yorkshire and Gloucestershire
last year. We make no bones of the fact, however, that once we
are happy that we have met the humanitarian needs as best we can
in this country, the clothes are then exported to Eastern Europe
where mainly—a broad statement—they are bought by
people who cannot afford new clothing. I would therefore agree
with Alan that we need absolute transparency, to gain public confidence.
Baroness Platt of Writtle: It has been claimed
that the availability of cheap, fashionable clothes fuels today's
throw-away culture and encourages consumers to buy cheap items,
as we have heard earlier, and then dispose of them before the
end of their life. Is it realistic to try to reduce consumption
and, if so, how can consumer behaviour be changed? I am sure that
this jacket is about 15 years old! But then I was brought up during
the war and so I did not throw things away. How do we get back
to that idea?
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