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As part of DEFRA's work on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), they are developing ten product roadmaps to reduce the environmental and social impacts across the life cycle of a range of priority products. Clothing is one of these products.
Why clothing?
Evidence shows that clothing and textiles is a high impact product category, exacerbated by the high volumes of clothes we consume in the UK. Within the EU-25, clothing and textiles account for approximately 5-10 per cent of our environmental impacts. Without intervention and with growing consumption these impacts are likely to increase. For further details click here.
The Waste Strategy for England sets out seven priority waste materials where action should be targeted to increase resource efficiency. These are: textiles, plastics, paper/card, glass, wood, aluminium, and food and garden waste. The priority waste materials have been identified on the basis of evidence on potential reductions of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from diversion from landfill and increased recycling and recovery.
Download a copy of the Waste Strategy for England 2007 here.
On 12 July 2007, updated European legislation came into force that creates a more universal list of waste codes, and simplifies the procedures for notifiable and non-notifiable waste. For further information click here.
The Duty of Care is a law that is detailed in section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act (1990). If any organisation (e.g. charity, local authority or business), passes its second hand clothing waste to a textile recycling merchant, they must ensure that the merchant has the legal authority to take the waste.
Failure to comply with the Duty of Care may result in a conviction where the penalty could be an unlimited fine.
Click here for further information.
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