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Recycling textiles

[[https://mtsprout.nl/impact/duurzaamheid/crisis-voor-textielrecycling-industrie-oplossingen|
 Textile processors are drowning in cheap polyester: 'Sector in crisis' ]]

Translated


 Textile processors are drowning in cheap polyester: 'Sector in crisis'

The textile recycling industry in the Netherlands is not doing well. Partly due to the rapid rise of Shein and Temu, the quality of what is thrown into textile bins is plummeting. There is much less interest worldwide in what can be resold. The sector is trying to regain control. 'We need money and time.'
Textile recycling
The revenue model of textile processors is under pressure: the price per kilo for sorted second-hand clothing has fallen by more than 30 percent. Photo: Sympany
Written by:
Wilke Wittebrood
August 2, 2024 7 minutes

What does the daily supply look like at textile collector and sorter Boer Group? Bins full of polyester sweaters. Worthless stuff, literally. Garments that are still in good condition (read: not worn to pieces and without holes) can possibly be reused. For the rest, the incinerator awaits. Of the 85,000 kilos of discarded textiles that arrive at the company every day, 4 percent – approximately 3,500 kilos – is destroyed.
State of crisis

The textile recycling industry in the Netherlands is not doing well, co-owner and corporate communications executive Mariska Boer tells MT/Sprout. 'I would prefer to tell a happier story, but the reality is that our revenue model is under pressure. This applies not only to Boer Group, but to the entire sector.'

Boer is also chairman of the Textile Recovery Association (VHT), which has sounded the alarm several times in recent months. According to the interest representative, the textile recycling industry and in particular the sorting companies are in a 'state of crisis' .
Buy more, throw away more

Experts endorse the problem. "The sector is under enormous pressure," says Kim Poldner. She is a lecturer in circular business at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and a special professor of circular and regional economics at the University of Groningen. 'An important cause is the rapid rise of fast fashion and especially ultra fast fashion. They have caused a huge shift in the fashion landscape.'

Also read: Billion-dollar profits with dirt-cheap stuff: how Shein and Temu are disrupting e-commerce

Research shows that the number of clothing purchases per person worldwide increased by 60 percent between 2000 and 2014, while those items are kept for only half as long. And then the 'disposable fashion' of the Chinese clothing giants Shein and Temu still had to come: with an annual turnover of 45 billion dollars, the former Zara owner has now surpassed Inditex (35.9 billion) and H&M (21 billion) in size.

What does that do to our consumption behavior? Nowadays, the average Dutch person buys about 46 new items per year and throws away 40. Poldner: 'And what ends up in those bins is of increasingly lower quality.'
Not in the textile bin, but on Vinted

That matters because that is precisely how the sector makes its money. The revenue model is very simple, outlines Charles Graft, director of the Sympany foundation. 'We collect discarded textiles, sort them and sell them per kilo. The revenue is the difference between the purchase and sales price, minus the costs incurred.'
Items that can be sold in Western Europe – think of a good pair of Levi's 501 jeans – logically yield the most. Only there are fewer and fewer of them. Photo: Sympany

Items that can be sold on the Western European market – think of a good pair of Levi's 501 jeans – logically yield the most. 'That share has decreased significantly, also because people now prefer to sell those types of pieces via Vinted.' Clothing that is less beautiful or hip - the second-hand market also has trends - ends up in the second-hand circuit in Eastern Europe, Africa and South America via buyers.

Also read: Thomas Plantenga (Vinted): 'What we do now is just kid's play'

Six years ago, 84 percent of all clothing collected in the Netherlands was exported ( Massabalans Textiel 2018 ). That share is shrinking rapidly now that more and more clothing from Shein and Temu is being thrown into the textile bins, says Boer. 'There is nothing that can be done with this in terms of reuse. Recycling is also not an option, because the clothing is largely made of polyester and there are no good techniques yet to recycle it on a large scale.'
'Fast fashion desert'

Not only does the inflow become blurred, sales also stagnates, says Graft. 'That started with the war in Ukraine, a major customer just like Russia. We are also affected by the unrest in the Sahel countries and the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the attacks by the Houthi rebels on the Red Sea, have also disrupted the Arab market. Unrest means less liquidity. The money flows have simply dried up.'

Another point is that some countries, such as Uganda , no longer want the cast-offs from the West. Because the influx hinders the local textile industry or ends up as waste - the 'fast fashion desert' in Chile is notorious.

Also read: How do we save clothes from the waste mountain? 4 possible solutions

Or they replace Western clothing with something else, Mariska Boer sees. 'We are increasingly confronted with competition from cheaper second-hand textiles from China and Shein and Temu are also gaining ground in our sales markets.'
35 million garments left

The result is that sales prices for sorted second-hand clothing have fallen by more than 30 percent in the first half of 2024, according to figures from VHT. If it is sold at all, because stocks have increased 'extremely' according to the trade association.

Textile collector Sympany is also struggling with an oversupply, says director Charles Graft. 'Our stock is 30 percent higher than normal, which amounts to an additional 2 to 3 million kilos of textiles. We spend a lot of money on extra storage space at a time when costs are already rising sharply, because minimum wages have also increased. Sorting is human work, it is largely done manually.'
Purchase price reduced

The sector is trying to regain control. By organizing processes more efficiently and keeping a tighter control on costs; For example, Boer Group is investigating whether part of the sorting work can be moved to Eastern Europe. But because the process is labor intensive, the most important knob to turn is the purchase price.

Collectors pay to place textile containers in municipalities. This in itself makes sense because discarded textiles, although legally waste, are anything but worthless. Such an offer usually goes to the highest bidder: in order to obtain a tender, parties squeeze each other out of the market, Trouw wrote earlier this year.
Collectors pay to place textile containers in municipalities and compete fiercely on price. Photo: Sympany

Now that the market is in shambles, that option no longer holds true, says Graft. 'We have discussed this with our partners to see whether we can organize this differently. That they bear the transport costs, for example. A number of municipalities are very reasonable, they really think along with us.'

Mariska Boer: 'To remain competitive, the purchasing price must be reduced. In the current situation, municipalities should actually pay us to take over the textiles, not the other way around.'
The polluter pays

Market parties are critical of recently introduced legislation that should stimulate the circular economy, the UPV Textile . The law has been in force since July 2023 and makes fashion brands and retailers responsible for the waste phase of the clothing they market in the Netherlands. They must report annually on the amount of textiles they sell and demonstrate what happens to the residual material.

Also read: Who still has clothes repaired? If it is up to startup Mended, this will soon be completely normal again

They are also required to set up a system to collect more clothing, enable more reuse and recycle more. They have to finance this themselves, according to the 'polluter pays' principle. Three foundations have now been established that want to facilitate this as a collective.

The best known is the UPV Textiel Foundation, initiated by trade organizations Modint and Inretail, to which the 600+ participants contribute annually, depending on the number of kilos sold. In addition, producer organizations European Recycling Platform Netherlands and Collective Circular Textiel are active.
Keeping the system afloat

Boer Group and Sympany do not know exactly how much money will become available in this way and how much of it will flow to the existing infrastructure. 'While we desperately need that support to keep the system afloat,' says Boer. 'It's going much too slowly for us.'

'I understand it somehow too. Fashion companies are having a hard enough time, they don't want more administration and financial hassle. My impression is that they are deliberately slowing things down. In their position I might have done the same.' Graft nods, “They don't have much to gain from this, do they? The model of reuse and recycling goes against their revenue model.'

Professor Poldner endorses the problem. 'The UPV Textiel has still not gotten off the ground. The fact that three producer organizations have been set up, because not everyone agrees with the conditions of Modint and Inretail, does not help either.'

'I have confidence in the UPV as an instrument. If market parties join forces to collect better and more efficiently and an additional pot of money becomes available for this, the law can certainly make a difference. But the landscape has become fragmented, while the need is now so great.'
Change business model

The financial support is also necessary to buy time. Time to change the business model, that is. The industry has to, says Graft. 'Currently, 75 percent of the clothing we collect is re-wearable, but with the deteriorating quality of the supply, I expect that this will drop to 30 to 40 percent.'

That is why Sympany focuses more on recycling. Since 2020, the foundation has had an interest in the Twente startup Saxcell, a spin-off from Saxion University of Applied Sciences, which developed a method to make new fibers from waste cotton through chemical recycling.

Also read: BYBORRE pledges 16.9 million to make the textile industry more sustainable with high-tech knitting

Boer Group is following the same path. Six years ago, the group acquired textile recycling company Frankenhuis. Mariska Boer looks back with an eye to the future. 'With this acquisition we are preparing for a larger share of recycling.' Since then, a lot of work has been done in Almelo - Frankenhuis says it processes 600,000 kilos of 'post-consumer' textiles per month into filling material and new fibers - but the problem is that no one wants the end product.
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5 percent is enough

Frankenhuis has its own brand of recycled yarns, FFIBR. According to Boer, there is simply no demand for this at the moment, because it is still cheaper for fashion companies to use so-called virgin materials. Legislation is the only solution, she says.

Last month, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) came into effect in Europe. Member states have two years to transpose the directive into national law. 'As part of the ESPR, make it mandatory that 5 percent of the materials used must consist of post-consumer textiles. 5 percent, that's enough to start the flywheel.'