There has probably never been a time in the past when we have entered a new year with such reduced – but nevertheless realistic – expectations. Owing to the unremittingly brutal nature of 2020 and the world’s continuing struggle against COVID, 2021 was always likely to bring only incremental improvements in business conditions without ever permitting a return to pre-pandemic levels. 

During last year’s divisional eForum and webinar, I warned that the textiles recycling industry could not expect to return to 2019 activity levels for at least 18 months to two years. This view chimes with those expressed by experts addressing BIR’s Keynote Session in October: neither Stefan Schilbe of HSBC Germany nor Prof. Philippe Chalmin of commodity research specialist CyclOpe anticipated such a recovery until 2022, and potentially even 2023. 

The early months of the pandemic brought a steep decline in our business worldwide as many retail outlets were forced to close and processing operations became more restricted, leading initially to a huge increase in inventories of both raw materials and sorted goods, and thus a substantial decrease in prices. Around the world, the traditional mechanics of collection, sorting and sales became impaired and, at times, collapsed completely. 

Although demand and payment levels for sorted goods had showed some improvement by the time of our October webinar, prices were still 15-25% lower than at the start of 2020, while demand for recycled goods had witnessed no improvement. Even late last year, many sorters were still working at reduced capacities while their stocks of originals were typically 50% to 100% higher than the seasonal norm. We have also been forced to contend with regular staff shortages owing to illness, self-isolation and parenting requirements in light of school/kindergarten closures.

Goods continued to flow into the export channel but, again, not at pre-COVID rates and values, and a lack of shipping containers did not help our business cause. In March, we were also hit by Kenya’s virus-related import ban on used clothing and textiles although, thankfully, this was lifted five months later.

The pandemic stretched our resilience and our resources at a time when we were already facing damaging trends, such as the negative impact of fast fashion on quality and therefore on the proportion of marketable second-hand textiles. In truth, we need to be smarter about fashion to ensure: clothes are worn for longer; recyclability is considered at the design stage; and less waste is generated. In line with the waste hierarchy forever supported by BIR, recycling is part of the solution – and a very important part – but waste reduction is critical too. 

It is against this backdrop that the European Commission has ordered the publication in 2021 of a comprehensive strategy aimed at boosting the circularity of textiles. BIR representatives are actively involved in key discussions towards this goal, such as the first Policy Hub workshop which focused on extended producer responsibility (EPR). 

This debate was continued at our eForum and webinar last year. In June, Mauro Scalia of European apparel and textile confederation EURATEX argued that EPR schemes should value different textiles that may need different recycling routes, and should avoid detrimental unintended consequences. And Maud Hardy of France-based Eco TLC suggested EPR made sense only if integrators of recycled materials could be connected with the manufacturers of those materials. 

At our October webinar, EuRIC’s Emmanuel Katrakis contended that the textiles strategy should champion EPR so as to support a proper infrastructure and modulate fees based on textiles’ reusability, recyclability and recycled content, while also incentivizing reuse and incorporation of recycled fibres into new products. In line with waste hierarchy thinking, Hilde van Duijn of Netherlands-based Circle Economy stressed that the priority should not be recycling but rather ensuring products were used more and for longer. As she argued, it is essential that the end-of-life value chain – and not just brands and producers – are at the table when these issues are under discussion.

So while the impacts of 2020 will be with us for some time to come, we have no time to dwell on what has happened and on what we cannot affect. We at BIR, and we as an industry, need to look to the future so as to ensure that recycling and recyclers play the most active part possible in the new future for textiles that is currently under discussion.