Keeping in circulation

What would happen if a total ban on the landfilling of textiles and clothing was introduced?

This is something the UK’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is currently investigating, based on the assumption that a far greater amount would consequently be recycled.

The investigation follows recycling watchdog WRAP’s 2011 study which estimated that between 2009-24, a textile-specific restriction would save 3.4 million tons of CO2e with a net benefit to the country of £110 million. Further, if there were to be a ban on all unsorted waste, the textile component would result in savings of 10 million tons of CO2e, with a net benefit of £250 million.

Breakdown
In a report for the Copenhagen Resources Institute earlier this year, WRAP provided a breakdown showing that around 160,000 tons of clothing are now recycled annually, while 540,000 tons are reused. At the same time, 83,000 tons are incinerated and 445,000 tons (31%) still sent to landfill.

The figures specific to the country’s corporate wear sector, however, are notably dispiriting, showing that of the 16,290 tons of waste generated from it annually, only 1% is reused and 10% recycled, with 17% incinerated and the remaining 72% sent to landfill, which is surely an area that could be redressed.

Other non-clothing textiles also fare badly, with just 7% of footwear reused and negligible recycling, while the reuse of mattresses and domestic carpets is also minimal, with recycling rates of 15% and 5% respectively.
Speaking at the 2013 Carpet Recycling UK (CRUK) conference in Birmingham, however, Defra’s Natasha Smith said that any landfill ban was unlikely to be instigated by the UK government, but could well arise as a result of European legislation.

Complex
CRUK’s 80+ members managed to divert 21.4% of the 400,000 tons of carpet waste produced in the UK from landfill in 2012 and are on course to hit a target of 25% by 2015. The 2020 target of 60%, however, may be harder to achieve with what are often complex composite products, but in 2008 just 2% of carpets were being recycled.

Even without a ban, there are strong incentives for further progress, not least because the cost of landfilling in the UK will escalate to £80 per ton in 2014.
CRUK’s co-ordinator Jane Gardner stressed the need to achieve the highest possible value for products which are recycled, since at present in the UK, only 1% of the rescued carpet is reused and 41% recycled, with the remainder being incinerated for energy recovery. CRUK is seeking to get the reused content up to around 5% in the next few years.

“We think this is achievable,” she said, “but at the moment only around thirteen per cent of local authorities in the UK have separate carpet collection and we are lobbying to get the figure up to nearer fifty per cent.”

Fibre content
Success stories include the increasing number of plastic construction materials being made from recycled carpet and the replacement of rubber in surfaces for the equestrian industry.

As far as fibres are concerned, around 202,000 tons of carpet waste is polypropylene based, 64,000 tons nylon, 62,000 tons wool and 47,000 tons mixed synthetics and fibre reprocessing is growing strongly.
Katie McGuire of consultancy CO2 Sense provided her views on the circular economy and stressed the need to differentiate between downcycling and the need to stop technical and biologican nutrients from being wasted.

“It’s about keeping materials in circulation and we must get away from the idea of doing ‘less bad’,” she said. “Consumer behavious is key and we need to think in terms of services rather than products.
Rudi Daelmans of Desso furthered this theme by suggesting the linear economy, in taxing labour and not materials, is ultimately responsible for the culture of ‘take, make and dispose’ and that in a world of limitation, only those production processes demonstrating a material cycle are sustainable in the long term.