Page 30 from: November 2013

30 November 2013

more, but which if it were to go bankrupt could

mean that the charity would be much worse off.’

‘Evil’ practices
To add to the pressures on business,

thefts of material were proving to be a persist-

ent menace and yet there was often no follow-

up when operators complained to the author-

ities about such incidents, according to

divisional vice president Mehdi Zerroug of

Framimex in France. Only a collective effort –

including from the judiciary and from the vic-

tims of these activities – could succeed in

stamping out the problem, he insisted in Warsaw.

Reporting for Belgium, Pol T’Jollyn of NV

Recutex went as far as to describe thefts from

containers and also during house-to-house col-

lections as ‘evil’, but acknowledged that such

practices would be ‘very hard to stop as long as

the price for originals remains so high’. On a

positive note, however, he pointed out that

‘some actions have been taken’ by the authori-

ties to put a stop to this illegal activity, resulting

in a number of people being ‘brought to justice

and convicted’.

B I R W A R S A W By Ian Martin

Pol T’Jollyn described thefts from
containers and also during
house-to-house collections as
‘evil’.

BIR Textiles Division president
Olaf Rintsch assumed that contai-
ner space providers were unlikely
to accept any rate reductions.

With the price of originals now beginning to fall, there was currently no shortage
of challenges facing textiles recycling compa-

nies, it emerged from the latest BIR Textiles

Round-Table.

Container space providers were unlikely to

accept any rate reductions and unemptied

boxes would possibly be seen on the streets

again, while some collectors could be forced

into bankruptcy, ventured BIR Textiles Division

president Olaf Rintsch of Textil Recycling K&A

Wenkhaus in Germany. And according to the

division’s general delegate Alan Wheeler of the

UK’s Textile Recycling Association, his mem-

bers had reported that ‘warehouses are full and

their buyers are buying less’. The harshness of

business conditions had meant that a further

two TRA members had gone out of business

since the spring – ‘resulting in hundreds of job

losses’ – to add to the six established UK textile

collection companies that had ceased trading

in the early months of this year.

Wheeler went on to add: ‘Charities need to be

careful to ensure that their collectors do not build

up large debts. If I

were a charity shop

manager, I would be

much more con-

cerned about wheth-

er my shop is receiv-

ing regular payments

and a professional

service, rather than

going for a new busi-

ness which suppos-

edly will be paying a

few pence per kilo

Worldwide, some 18 billion pairs of shoes are
sold each year but recycling is no easy task
because each item of footwear can contain up
to 80 components. Undaunted, researchers
backed by funds from ECO TLC in France are
approaching the challenge from a new direction.
A key objective has been to devise innovative
separation techniques as well as new applications
for the recovered materials, according to Pailak
Mzikian, head of recycling & sustainability at SOEX
Textil-Vermarktungsgesellschaft in Germany. The
process outlined by the guest speaker includes:
sorting; shredding and metal removal; a delamina-
tion mill stage to separate materials that are stuck
to each other; and zig-zag air separation to sort
the input material according to density. More than
one pass would be required in the fi nal air separa-
tion chamber to achieve a clean, homogeneous
raw material, Mzikian told the BIR Textiles Round-
Table in Warsaw.
Through laboratory-based testing, the researchers
are also looking at pulverising the outfl ows from
this process and using binders in order to create
pellets that could be tailored to the raw material
requirements of various customers. One of the
aims of the project is to establish by April next year
a network of industries interested in using these
secondary raw materials. Recruits to this network
include high-profi le retail chains such as H&M and
Ikea, he noted.
According to Mzikian, the intention was for a
processing plant to be set up at Wolfen in Ger-
many by the end of this year and for two 100%
recycled products to be created by next summer
in order to prove the overall concept.
It was important to address the footwear recy-
cling issue, he told delegates, given that con-
sumption rates were growing in developing
countries such as India, where
average demand currently stood at
0.6 pairs per year compared to 6.9
pairs in the USA, 4.5 in Europe and
2.6 worldwide. Some leading
brands, including Nike, had adopt-
ed their own recycling initiatives
but these tended to focus on their
own footwear specialisms rather
than on fi nding a solution appli-
cable to all types of shoe and all
components, Mzikian pointed out.

With theft remaining a stubborn problem and with trading conditions

providing very little cause for celebration, delegates to the BIR Textiles

Round-Table in Warsaw could at least enjoy the major honour

bestowed on one of the sector’s leading lights as well as a guest pre-

sentation which outlined a new approach to footwear recycling.

A forward stride in foot-
wear recycling

Textiles

A worrying tale of
thefts and job losses

RI-9-BIR Textiles2.indd 30 08-11-13 16:02