What Does The Project Reuse and Recycle?

The Textiles Recycling Process

Sport into Schools exchanges unwanted textiles for new sports equipment.
As part of this process the textiles are both reused and recycled with LMB. 

So the important question is: why recycle textiles?

Once collected, the textiles are taken to a recycling facility in London where they are sorted. LMB is one of the few remaining companies who still do all their sorting in the UK, as many people have transferred their sorting to countries in eastern Europe where labour costs are much less. LMB believes that we have an obligation and responsibility to deal with our own waste here in the UK.

1. The initial sort ensures non textile and waste products are removed. The UK public take their own responsibility to this seriously, meaning only 2% waste needs to be dealt with by recycling or landfill (as a final resort).
    
2. Approximately 50% of the remainder will not be good enough for Reuse as it is stained or damaged. These are cut into wiping cloths if made from cotton while other materials are shredded for mattress filling or for sound proofing in the automotive industry.
    
3. The rest of the textiles will be sorted into over 100 grades, based upon various factors from garment type, fashion and material. Ensuring that the right clothing is sent to the right country and that it is marketable (affordable and desirable) is one of LMB’s more complicated jobs.
    
4. The textiles are sold in the UK, Eastern Europe, Africa and India (see here). By selling the textiles, LMB are helping the receiving countries' economy; giving people jobs and providing affordable clothing.

To see the LMB textile recycling story click here

The Importance of Textile Recycling

In the UK, approximately 8% by weight of all household waste was composed of clothes or textiles in 2005 (Oakdene Hollins Ltd et al., 2006) and each person discards on average 30 kg of clothing and textiles per year (Allwood et al., 2006). In addition, the current consumption trends encourage the public to buy more clothes and to keep them for a shorter time. As a result, textiles are the fastest-growing sector in terms of household waste (Oakdene Hollins Ltd et al., 2006):

• 47% of these collected clothes are reused as second-hand clothes;
• 45% are recycled into wipers, filling materials or reclaimed fibres;
• 8% end up as waste.

The rest of the clothes are discarded together with household waste and end up landfilled or incinerated (Source: WRAP Environmental Benefits of Textile Recycling 2010.)

There is evidence that textile recycling brings substantial environmental benefit, the scale of which depends on the recovery routes and the material production that is avoided.

Textile Facts:

• Over 1 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away on average every year, mostly from domestic sources, of which only 25% are recycled.
• Textiles represent between 3% - 5% of household waste.
• An average of 550,000 - 900,000 tonnes of textile waste is produced in the UK every year.
• Textiles make up 12% of landfill sites
• If everyone in the UK bought one reclaimed woollen garment each year, it would save an average of 371 million gallons of water, (the average UK reservoir holds about 300 million gallons) and 480 tonnes of chemical dyestuffs- (source: evergreen)
• There are about 6,000 textile banks nationwide, but clothes banks are only operating at about 25% capacity
• Over 70% of the world's population use second hand clothes
• Discarded clothing and shoes are typically sent to landfill which presents particular problems in landfill. Synthetic (man-made) fibre products do not decompose, woollen garments do decompose, but in doing so they produce methane, which contributes to global warming and climate change.

What Are My Options?

The word textiles means any fabrics you have at home, so it doesn’t just mean the clothes that you wear but your ‘accessories’ such as shoes, bags, belts and ties as well as household textiles such as curtains, towels and bedding. All of these items can be reused if they are in a reasonable condition and if they are slightly damaged they can be recycled!

Textile recycling has been around for hundreds of years, starting with a man called Benjamin Law in 1813 and the ‘rag and bone’ man. Since then it has grown rapidly and there are now many ways in which you can recycle your items! Instead of throwing them straight in the bin when they get damaged you can try to repair your textiles or if your clothes don’t fit you anymore you can pass them on to a family member or friend!

By donating your textiles to the Sports into Schools London 2012 Inspire project you will be supporting your local schools and sports clubs to get new sports equipment on the lead up to the 2012 Olympics - helping children become healthy, environmentally aware, active members of the community.

But you can also donate your textiles to various charities across the country, which will help to fund vital projects around the world.

Below is a list of links to some of the charities that you can recycle your textiles with:

Oxfam - http://www.oxfam.org.uk/

Save The Children - http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/

Barnardo’s - http://www.barnardos.org.uk/

Cancer Research - http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/

The British Heart Foundation - http://www.bhf.org.uk/

Phyllis Tuckwell - http://www.pth.org.uk/

Age Concern - http://www.ageuk.org.uk/

You can also go onto Recycle Now’s website here where you will be able to locate the nearest textile recycling banks to you. 

Whichever route you decide to take on disposing of your textiles, Wastebuster asks that you do not simply throw them in a bin where they will eventually end up in a landfill.

Social, Economic and Environmental Benefits

People in Europe discard their clothing long before it is worn out, usually because it is no longer fashionable whereas people in the developing world require clothing for more basic requirements such as to keep them warm and dry, or protect them from the sun. Consequently, an international trade in second-hand clothing has grown to redistribute the worlds resources.

Second-hand clothing has become an integral part of developing countries' economies; it is an industry that provides jobs, clothing and an amount of economic stability on which to build on.

There are a number of papers looking into the effects the second-hand clothing trade has on developing countries including Dr Simone Fields case study on Kenya “The Beneficial Nature of the Second-Hand Clothing Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “The Impact of the Second-Hand Clothing Trade on Developing Countries” (download below) by Sally Baden and Catherine Barber and commissioned by Oxfam. These papers along with Textile Recycling Association concluded that the benefits of second-hand clothing were great and also not limited to the countries where they were sold. The main benefits were:

• Providing affordable clothing in counties with low purchasing powers.
• Increasing trade and benefiting the economy.
• Supporting livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people (in excess of 5 million jobs directly associated with the second-hand clothing trade in Kenya alone).
• Around 10,000 directly associated jobs in the UK and over 9,500 indirectly associated jobs.

Although there is no evidence that second-hand clothing has a disruptive influence on domestic textile production and indeed, most people agree that local textile production would never be able to recover because of cheap imports from Asia. There are also a number of ways it can easily be countered by the receiving nations, such as; choosing to have quotas on the volume of clothing entering the market, or increasing duty levels.

Do Charities Give Textiles Away?

It is often assumed that charities give clothing to the developing world, this is not the case, the second hand clothing industry is highly developed and employs many millions of people, in the UK collecting it and sorting it or in developing countries where people are paid to unload lorries, work in the dock, collect taxis or sell the clothing. The charity sector deals in second hand clothing to provide revenue which they then use for their charitable purpose, quite often this is from selling what hasn’t sold in there shop to specialist merchants like LMB.

Most charities in the UK can only sell between 5-10% of the clothing donated in their stores, as in the UK there is a great choice of low cost fashion retailers. The majority is usually sold to textile merchants like LMB. .. The second-hand clothing industry is highly developed and employs many millions of people; collecting it and sorting it in the UK, or in receiving countries, some of these jobs include unloading lorries, working in the docks, administrative work, collecting taxes or selling the clothing in developing countries.

The charity sector deals in second-hand clothing to provide revenue which they then use for their charitable purpose, often this is through a charity shop, a lot of the clothing donated to charity shops won't actually be sold in store because people in the UK have a lot of options where to buy clothing. As such the surplus collected is often sold to specialist collectors such as LMB, who have the infrastructure and specialist market knowledge to ensure it is reused or recycled.

For those charities involved in international aid they will only give away clothing in the developing world in times of natural disaster or political unrest. The preferred option is to always buy the clothing locally as this helps stabilise the local economy and obviously inject money where needed.

The International Textiles Market

LMB have many years experience in the industry as such have specialist markets for damaged and worn clothing in addition to selling the clothing which can be reused.

So, does second hand clothing unfairly compete against the clothing market in receiving countries?

Many countries such as India and Tunisia who manufacture clothing impose quotas ensuring the amount of second-hand clothing entering the market does not get to high. Other countries impose high duties to ensure that second-hand clothing is expensive in the market compared to domestic produced clothing.

Often domestically produced clothing is manufactured for export to the west where prices are higher than the local market can afford. However, the world does not have enough resources to clothe everyone and as such it is essential that good clothing is re-used in the UK or abroad when-ever possible.