The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will launch a “sustainable clothing roadmap” in February 2009 to try to reduce the environmental impact of our clothes.
One of the key agendas for that roadmap will be to maximise reuse and recycling of clothes at the end of its life.

More than 300 stakeholders, including Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer, have currently signed up to actions to help make fashion a more sustainable industry and are launching the full action plan at London Fashion Week in February. The clothing sector will work with the Government to look at the whole clothing supply chain from manufacture to consumer.

Speaking at a Defra Ministerial briefing (December 17), Lord Hunt who has directed the roadmap, said: “The clothing sector is very important. I did not realise how big it was in terms of £23 billion being spent. We have important people involved, like those who design, those in retail and people involved in how to dispose of clothes in a sustainable way.”

Defra environmental specialist Dr Dorothy Maxwell said that stakeholders have agreed to take action to maximise reuse and recycling of clothes at the end of their life. She said: “In the UK, we generate 2 million tonnes of waste clothing per annum. About 63% of it finds its way to landfill. Only 16% is recovered and 21% is unaccounted for – it stays in our wardrobes. A lot of stakeholders are looking at increasing in-store collection. We are also looking at target products, like school uniforms, where they are easy to recover and easy to recycle, especially being that they are synthetics. Corporate clothing is another one, they are also mainly made from synthetic material.”

She added that organisations like Oxfam are looking to develop infrastructure to recover clothes.
“One of the things we are looking at is a Defra funded study on maximising reuse and recycling clothing at the end of life and helping to support that by having increased recyclate in clothing. Synthetic material could be very powerful there and we would like to showcase and help grow that side. Most of our clothing is made from synthetic material so it’s where the bulk volumes are when you think of waste and if we could closed loop recycle it, we could really make a difference.”

Defra will also be working with the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and local authorities on trials to improve the textile recovery rate. Defra has not yet decided on the geographical area but is investigating whether to do a pilot household collection from local authorities on the best collection methods to increase the textile recovery rates.
Hunt said that the Government will look at introducing league tables for retailers so that consumers can have an idea about how different retailers perform on clothing and sustainability.

See link: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/consumerprod/products/clothing.htm