Sustainable Fashion Stella McCartney is renowned for being one of the most well known designers but incorporating sustainable techniques into her collections. She has said 'I want to incorporate sustainable fabrics but not make hippy clothes' I think this shows how sustainable fashion has moved on, in the early days it was mainly about saving the world and not harming too many trees and abolishing slave labour and of course, all of these need to stop and the only way sustainable fashion will help, is if the garments are desirable. Rapanui http://www.rapanuiclothing.com/ is a brand based on the isle of wight, it's a commercial brand as it appeals to surfers and skaters and all round 'dudes' and 'dudettes' however, there textile mill aim India uses wind turbines to power it, which they use to make organic cotton, cotton can only be called organic if it is totally free of destructive toxic pesticides and chemical fertilisers. When I first looked at sustainable fashion I thought I would find out what I already thought I knew, that sustainable fashion just means buying a quality peice that would last you ages instead of buying a few cheap t-shirts. Which is partly right but I thought I'd have a look at what the bigwigs in fashion thought it meant: Frida Gianni, gucci creative director 'quality items that stand the test of time, it is this concept of sustainability that is symbolised by a timeless handbag you can wear again and again' Oscar de la Renta 'A commitment to the traditional techniques and not just the art' Anya Hindmarch, initiator of 'I am not a plastic bag' 'the idea of locally sourced materials that don't pollute in their creation or demise (preferably recycled) and with limited transportation. Jamie Alexander, emerging fashion designer and writer of this post 'it's difficult to say what sustainable really means when everyone has different opinions, just as long as I can design and make without harming the environment, using recycled and organic materials where possible and absolutely never using slaves and taking advantage of low paid workers' - Jamie.

Portland Fashion Week, which is the biggest fashion week in the Pacific Northwest and one of the largest in the nation, has received global recognition as the first and only eco-sustainable production of a fashion week in the world. PFW Productions provides total solutions for a high-end fashion event including runway and installation show production, set design and setup, audio-visual and entertainment, event management services, and promotions. PFW specializes in building relationships between corporations and fashion designers, with a view to create campaigns that are unprecedented and effective. Such unique partnerships lead to extra-ordinary PR buzz, creating worldwide press and attention.Over the years, our corporate relationships encompassed world-known brands, including, Intel, Lufthansa Airlines, Delta Air Line,  SolarWorld, Pureology, Adidas, Nike, Polartec and Bawls Guarrana. PFW produced runway shows by famed designers from all over the world, like, Project Runway winner Seth Aaron, Colombian designer Amelia Toro, leading US eco-designer Anna Cohen, Lara Miller, and Pendleton. Such world-class collaborations placed it in global press – Book Moda, Huffington Post, NBC/New York, Marie Claire, Lufthansa in-flight, and Boho Magazine. Jamie and Jess P

Letter: Why not let British dairy farmers join Fairtrade?

Tuesday 12th April 2011, 6:00AM BST.

Letter: From supermarkets I can buy Fairtrade goods so that producers from all over the world receive a good price. I can buy meat, chickens and eggs from sustainable good practice British farms, I can buy fish from sustainable oceans.

So why can I not buy milk from sustainable British dairy farms?
Why can’t the supermarkets pay Fairtrade prices for milk so that British dairy farms can stay in business?
At the moment they are dying because this living food is the same price as water in supermarkets.
A factory dairy farm for 1,000 cows is planned near Welshpool next to our school. This will only keep the supermarkets happy and the price per litre so low that more sustainable dairy farms will go out of business.
Imagine 1,000 cattles in sheds.
I will not drink milk produced in this way. If you feel as strongly as I and many others do, please contact your MPs, Welsh AMs, councillors, mayors, supermarkets etc and with enough support we can ban these factory dairies, especially in Wales’s green and pleasant land.

Read more: http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2011/04/12/letter-why-not-let-british-dairy-farmers-join-fairtrade/#ixzz1xTj1ZLJE

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British farmers to get Fairtrade cover

Scheme extended from developing world to UK

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Food produced in the UK is to be made part of the Fairtrade scheme, which was originally designed to prevent the exploitation of poor farmers in developing countries. Organic farmers' group the Soil Association and the Fairtrade Foundation are to announce an extension of the independent Fairtrade mark to British produce at the association's annual conference today. The Soil Association says the Fairtrade mark is needed in the UK to break away from the "fear chain" that the food production process has become.
Under Fairtrade standards, the price paid to farmers must cover the sustainable cost of production, and include a margin for profit and investment.
The Fairtrade scheme also aims to make a more direct link between farmers and consumers, and reduce the number of intermediaries taking a slice of the profits.
Harriet Lamb, director of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: "While our priority is to assist producers in [developing countries] who suffer most from the problems of world trade, we recognise that many of these problems are shared by farmers in developed countries as well."
The plight of farmers, including organic growers, in this country is now so bad, according to Soil Association director Patrick Holden, that they cannot survive unless they are given fairer terms of trade by the supermarkets.
"We no longer have a food chain but a fear chain. Supermarket buyers live in fear of not meeting their targets on margins. They want to buy cheap and sell expensive. The packer lives in fear of not meeting the supermarket targets for cosmetic perfection. The grower lives in fear of having his or her produce rejected or being priced out of business."
Organic farmers have been protected from some of the pressures on conventional farmers in the UK until recently, because their food has fetched a premium.
But competition between the supermarkets to increase their share of the organic market, growing imports encouraged by the high pound, and overproduction in some sectors such as organic milk, have led to a fall in the prices UK growers are paid.
Organic growers are also expected to meet the cosmetic standards of conventional farm produce, even though this may be incompatible with the organic principle of avoiding pesticides, Mr Holden said.
As a result, it is not uncommon for organic farmers to find up to 50% of their crops rejected by supermarkets.
Bruce Carlisle farms organically in Pembrokeshire on land that produces early potatoes and brassicas. Having failed to make any money this year, after 15 successful years as an organic farmer, he will apply to the Fairtrade scheme. He needs 18p per kilo to meet production costs for organic potatoes, but the price he gets at the moment is 15p.
One of his problems is "grade outs": half of his crop is regularly rejected because it has very small surface blemishes.
He would like to see a double pricing structure, where shoppers can chose to pay less for food that may not be cosmetically perfect.
Under a pilot scheme, the Fairtrade mark will be extended to potatoes, beef, bacon, sausages and pork from the UK. British organic milk and other dairy products are also likely to be included.
There are currently about 100 Fairtrade products sold in the UK covering agricultural commodities from some of the world's poorest countries such as coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, honey, and fruit.
Businesses applying for the certificate of Fairtrade for British food will have to demonstrate that in addition to paying producers a fair price, they make a contribution to social and environmental development through projects such as encouraging access to farmland, recycling, and training.
Retail sales of Fairtrade produce in the UK were £46m in 2001 and are expected to have exceeded £53m in 2002.    

Fair trade for uk farmers..

FAIR TRADE FOR UK FARMERS

On 8 February 2006, Sovereignty was interviewed by Green Futures, the magazine of Forum for the Future, on the concept of Fair Trade for UK Farmers. The following is the notes prepared by Alistair McConnachie which appeared as an article in the February 2006 issue of Sovereignty. Pictures: Contractor rowing and baling the silage at the McConnachie family farm, South West Scotland, July 2005. WHAT IS "FAIR TRADE" The seven principles of the "Fair Trade" concept -- which relates traditionally to trading with the developing world -- are: Fair Wages, Co-operative Workplaces, Consumer Education, Environmental Sustainability, Financial and Technical Support, Respect for Cultural Identity, and Public Accountability. The essence of the concept, however, is the payment of a "fair price" which ensures economic sustainability for both the producers and retailers, working together within a long-term mutually beneficial relationship, enabling both to plan ahead in economic security. LOCATING THE CONCEPT IN A BRITISH CONTEXT How can that concept be translated into a UK context? Clearly there are considerable economic, social and cultural differences between the context of struggling farmers and poverty in the developing world, compared with struggling farmers and levels of rural poverty as they exist in the UK. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to make a direct comparison. However, if we locate the plight of British agriculture within the context of economic globalisation worldwide, then we can understand that many of the same economic dynamics are operating in this country, as operate in the rest of the world, even though the surrounding circumstances and consequences may be different. The dominating economic concept underlying globalisation is one of "international competitiveness and efficiency" regardless of how socially or environmentally damaging this may be. For example, as a result of economic globalisation, we have the worldwide phenomena of more and more farmers being driven off the land. We have the dominance of large corporations in the food chain, who are able to dictate terms. We have ownership of land passing into fewer and fewer hands. We have more and more unnecessary trade, where we import goods we could produce ourselves, or export to countries who could do the same. This is the inevitable result of the economic model of globalisation, and in response to that we advocate economic localisation -- which means discriminating in favour of, and orientating the economic system towards, local and national needs and markets. Fair Trade for UK Farmers would be part of that localising process. Sovereignty encourages the NFU to explore and promote Fair Trade for UK Farmers -- and we suggest that if they did so then they would tap into a considerable amount of latent support among the public. There are three things which the NFU must do if it is to make maximum gains from this idea. THREE THINGS THE NFU MUST DO 1 -- The NFU must see Fair Trade as part of a wider programme of localising policies It would be a mistake for the NFU to see Fair Trade as just a temporary, fashionable bandwagon upon which they could jump, and which might offer a quick, short-term way of helping a few members to make some money. Rather Fair Trade as a policy should be embraced within a much wider programme of localising policies. 2 -- The NFU must change its fundamental economic concepts and its globalising rhetoric A lot of what the NFU says, economically, is responsible for the demise of British farming. It emphasises "international competitiveness and efficiency" and seems to suggest that if its members don't become "efficient" then they should go to the wall. The results of that globalising mentality are all around us. So the NFU will have to learn that it will not be able to talk "Fair Trade localisation" out of one side of its mouth and out of the other talk about British farmers "becoming more efficient in order to survive in the global market place" and other mantras which will inevitably mean that British farming goes under. The reality is that British farmers cannot compete with the international market. For example, how can a Scottish sheep farmer in the midst of a bitter winter compete with a New Zealand farmer who can ranch his sheep in mild weather all year? If it embraces the concept of Fair Trade then it will have to change its fundamental ideas from globalisation, to localisation and national food sovereignty. 3 -- The NFU must frame Fair Trade as Economic Justice It would be wrong if it framed Fair Trade as some kind of appeal to charity. British farming is not a charity, it is an essential part of our country. The Fair Trade movement taps into people's sense of economic justice. People buy Fair Trade because they want to do what is right for the developing world and they want to support a fair and just economic system. The same dynamic could easily apply towards British produce. It would reflect an attitude to living, to politics even, which locates British farming and growing within a wider national and global context, where the consumer is keen to do what is economically just, and where the consumer is able to use ethical purchasing as a direct means of challenging economic globalisation. Fair Trade in the UK needs to be framed in that positive, visionary, revolutionary sense, located within the wider struggle against globalisation and for economic and food sovereignty. Ethical purchasing is part of a revolutionary attitude towards life which is seeking to create, to build, to bring forth, to give life to a positive vision of a localised economic world which stands as an alternative to the faceless and economic imperialistic globalisation of today. This is an attitude to life which is about growing and building, not about dying and collapsing. This is a struggle which is not about compassion, but about solidarity, not about charity but about justice. Imagine an NFU which made a stand for economic localisation and for food sovereignty nationally and globally, and based all its philosophy and policies upon those two legs. It would be very attractive across the political and social spectrum and it could be a leader in social, economic and cultural change for the better. It could have huge appeal. It is uniquely suited to lead debate in this area. It needs to embrace the concept of Fair Trade for UK Farmers. Fairtrade Fortnight was on 6-19 March 2006 www.fairtrade.org.uk

how fair is fair trade ,peoples comments

How fair is Fairtrade?

By Brendan O'Neill The Fairtrade label is increasingly common. But while shoppers seem keen to pay a little over the odds for fair trade products, some observers question how effective it really is in helping developing world farmers.Fair trade products are popping up everywhere. Gone are the days when you had to trek to an off-the-beaten-track shop that smelt of hemp in order to buy a fair trade woolly jumper or bar of chocolate. Now you just need to visit the High Street. Topshop, once a bastion of cheap and cheerful garments, sells fair trade tunics, bubble tops and racer-back vests. And Marks and Spencer works with more than 600 fair trade cotton farmers in the developing world, using their cotton to produce chinos (for men), jeans (for women), hooded tops (for the kids), and a host of other fair trade fashion items. Fair trade bananas are big sellers Sainsbury's sells fair trade chocolate and coffee, and recently announced that the only bananas it will sell in future will come from fair trade producers. There are more than 2,500 product lines in the UK that carry the Fairtrade mark. Last year we spent £290m on fair trade food, furniture and clothing - an increase of 46% on the previous year. It is currently Fairtrade Fortnight, organised by the Fairtrade Foundation. Events at schools, colleges, universities and workplaces up and down the country consist of everything from makeovers (swap those ordinary store-bought clothes for fair trade threads) to food exchanges (bring along your favourite brand of tea, coffee or jam and swap it for a fair trade alternative). The aim of fair trade is clear - to get a better deal for Third World farmers. In order to win the Fairtrade tag, the application of which is monitored by Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International, companies have to pay farmers higher than the market price for their products. This means fair trade farmers are not at the mercy of the market's whims, and have extra money to invest in education for their children and other social needs. Poverty trap But not everyone is convinced that fair trade is a good idea. Some critics claim that by focusing on achieving a fair price for poor farmers, the movement doesn't address issues of mechanisation and industrialisation - radical changes that might allow farmers in the developing world to stop doing back-breaking work and break out of the poverty cycle. Sorting coffee by hand So how fair is fair trade? Is it about getting Third World farmers to accept their lot, or, at best, a little bit more than their lot? Eileen Maybin, a spokeswoman for the Fairtrade Foundation, says it does help to improve farmers' lives. "Fairtrade focuses on ensuring that farmers in developing countries receive an agreed and stable price for the crops they grow, as well as an additional Fairtrade premium to invest in social projects or business development programmes. "Typically, farmers' groups decide to use the premium on education, healthcare and clean water supplies, or the repair of roads and bridges, and to strengthen their businesses, improve the quality of their crop or convert to organic production." Ms Maybin says that those farmers involved in fair trading are happy with the results. "The farmers and workers involved in Fairtrade always talk about how much they, their families and their communities benefit." How can a few extra pennies a day from Fairtrade be celebrated as an outstanding achievement? Steve Daley, of the Worldwrite charity Yet others argue that fair trade can end up being a trap for farmers, tying them into a relationship of dependence with charity-minded shoppers in the West. Madsen Pirie, of the right-leaning think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, says that in protecting the market for certain producers, the movement effectively makes farmers "prisoners to our market". "They become dependent on us continuing to pay premium prices for their goods." Many tens of thousands of people escaped poverty last year, most of them in India and China, but he says that was done through real market developments rather than small-scale fair trade deals. They were lifted out of poverty because they could sell their products on the open global market, rather than being sectioned off in the fair trade market. Extra pennies In the charity world, too, there are critical voices in the fair trade debate. Steve Daley, who works with the education development charity Worldwrite, argues that fair trade's horizons are dangerously low. Oxfam has opened fair trade cafes "How can a few extra pennies a day from Fairtrade be celebrated as an outstanding achievement for the poor?" he asks. He cites a report from the Financial Times last September, which revealed that some fair trade coffee farmers in Peru were being paid 10 soles a day (about US$3) for working from 6am to 4.30pm. This is more than the conventional coffee farming wage of eight soles a day, but not much more. Mr Daley is concerned that the fair trade movement is reshaping the debate about underdevelopment, so that the main concern today is with increasing farmers' wages by fairly small amounts rather than really transforming poor communities through development, modernisation, even industrialisation. "Fairtrade seems to be rooted in a conviction that 'small is beautiful'," says Mr Daley, who argues that the movement does not focus enough on developing modern agricultural methods, which is "surely what farmers in the developing world need". Mr Daley says that fair trade is more about "flattering Western shoppers" than transforming the lives of Third World farmers. Self-sufficient Justin Purser, the commodities manager for Trade Aid Importers in New Zealand, disagrees. He has witnessed some of the big changes fair trade can make. "It is very common for fair trade coffee co-operatives to seek to build infrastructure which will cut down on the amount of labour required to process their coffee, and will also enable them to improve their coffee quality and, thereby, the higher prices they can command in the market." He gives as an example Prodecoop, a coffee cooperative in Nicaragua that he has worked with. "Prodecoop has grown, with the aid of a longer history of fair trade sales, to the size where it is now constructing wet mill facilities for its smaller member co-ops. And to help them along, Trade Aid is supplying an additional US$7,000 in funding this year." Fair trade helps to "promote self-sufficiency" among Third World farmers, he says. Add your comments on this story, using the form below. Major, mechanized farming methods are what made these people reliant on the so-called First World to begin with. Coffee is a primary example. All coffee used to be shade-grown. Today most of it is produced in cleared fields. This clearing of the native environment eliminated the natural system of pest control, necessitating the use of chemical insecticides. It depletes the soil, meaning that you also end up using chemical fertilizers. Between the use of these chemicals and modern tilling techniques, the soil is utterly depleted and a layer of hardpan is created below it, eliminating drainage. The result? Environmental devastation. Anyone who claims that these people need to convert to our way of farming is really saying that they need to convert to our way of life (such as it is) because there is something wrong with theirs. Martin Espinoza, Kelseyville, California I thought that one of the key aspects about fair trade was not that they pay the farmer a little extra, but that they guarantee a reasonable price from one harvest to another. So when prices are high, the farmers get the benefit, but when prices are low the farmers have a safety net. This allows long-term planning in the farms and communities, which leads to self-determination. Yes it is a market intervention, but so are the European subsidies. Martin, UK How about paying a fair price to British farmers? A farmer will be paid about 19p a litre of milk produced. Also a recent study showed that the average annual income for a UK farmer was £12,700 - compare this to the national average of about £25,000. Fair trade inside UK please. Rory, Shrewsbury The critics are right: it is tokenism. It is charity by another name - solidarity. But without it happening, there are an estimated five million producers and their families in poor countries who would receive even less than they currently do. Surely, the way forward is to encourage fair trade as an interim measure that people can take here and now, in their everyday buying behaviour, whilst also spending time and energy informing themselves about the real causes of poverty in the world, and then lobbying for political change in the rich countries. It is not an either/or; it is not even a choice between an ethical and moral approach v a hard-headed approach based on tough political analysis. The world needs immediate action through fair trade AND medium to long-term action through political means - awareness-raising among your neighbours and lobbying of politicians and other decision-makers. Neil Alldred, Ballymena, Northern Ireland Having visited a fair trade vineyard last year in South Africa, and comparing it with a non-fair trade vineyard, I can say the few pence extra you pay is really a massive difference. The kids had a school to go to. Their houses were clean. The black farmers owned their own land - giving them both long term security, and justice after years of apartheid. James, Belfast Interesting. So fair trade is either: (a) bad, because it gives people extra money; or, (b) bad, because it doesn't give people enough extra money; or, (c) good. It would be even more interesting to see how Madsen Pirie and the Adam Smith Institute might explain how farmers who receive a fair trade premium are "prisoners to our market", while those who depend instead on the ups and downs of the so-called "free" market are somehow not. Until the Adam Smith Institute stop campaigning for things like lower taxes for rich people, then I'm afraid I can't take much they say seriously. I buy fair trade products because I don't like my coffee to leave a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. Yes, it is about saving my soul. But you can't save souls without saving bodies too. Paul Carter, York, UK By promoting fair trade all we are doing is providing an incentive for developing countries to continue production in the primary sector. How can this help a country in the long run? What we should be doing is erasing all forms of market interference. If African farmers can't produce enough crops to make a profit then too bad. They should be producing some other goods in which they have a greater comparative advantage. That's the beauty of a market system. Fair trade will only bring inefficiency. Julio Koxh, Oxford It's a shame that as soon as something like fair trade gets popular, people come out to argue that it's not all that great. Fair trade is fantastic - sure, there are even bigger things that need to be done, but buying fair trade products is something I personally can do every day to help, rather than saying its not worth it and go back to buying products which have been made cheap mainly through exploitation. Dan Went, London Modernisation and industrialisation has killed hedgerows and whole species in the UK and created the problem we call climate change. Most people in the Third World do not want to be Westernised, they just want a fair deal. Phil, Nottingham The only effects of industrialisation will be to increase expenses for farmers (who will be dependent on importing expensive machine parts, fuel and fertilisers), put other farm-workers out of work (as industrial methods are less labour-intensive) and reduce the price of the crops (as there will be greater surpluses). Patrick, Leeds, UK I've always been of the opinion that fair trade, along with ethical, green and organic serve the dual purpose of allowing supermarkets to charge premium prices for bog standard products, and allowing self-hating liberals to buy off a bit of their own guilt. They do little for the Third World and are at best a gesture which I refuse to buy into. Matt Munro, Bristol, UK Matt, so what do you buy into then? Of course fair trade, organic, green and ethical products aren't perfect and don't end world poverty and global warming, but you have to start somewhere don't you? Veronica, Reading Maybe it doesn't strike high enough for some people, but guaranteeing farmers higher, stable prices for their crops can be nothing but a good thing. If they choose to spend their money on community projects and a future for their children rather than mechanisation, who are we to argue? Sam Chew, Loughborough, UK Fair trade will inevitably distort markets leading to overproduction of coffee, cocoa, bananas etc in random areas. This will push down prices elsewhere, randomly impoverishing less favoured areas. Markets work - including the market for labour. Much of the charity business seems determined to maximise the number of people following a peasant lifestyle in developing economies. However peasant economies are always unpleasant to live and work in - subsistence or close to subsistence farming will always be economically risky and unpleasant to work within. Do you see many Westerners volunteering to become peasants? Of course not, so why perpetuate the lifestyle for others? Kenneth, Edinburgh Not everyone can be (or wants to be) involved in specific charities or projects. Are we in danger of creating a hierarchy of interventions where leaders of community-based projects are at the top, and chocolate buyers at the bottom? Isn't there room for all of these in the drive for greater fairness? Diane Ashton, Rosyth, Fife RE "They become dependent on us continuing to pay premium prices for their goods." Who else are they going to sell their produce to? Other poor developing countries just as desperate for foreign exchange? And how will they earn the foreign exchange to repay their own debt? Labour and agriculturally rich countries have little choice but to sell what they can produce now, with little or no investment in hi-tech mechanical aides that require first world resources to maintain. Adrian Bright, Essex Steve Daley says that some fair trade coffee farmers in Peru were being paid 10 soles a day (about US$3) for working from 6am to 4.30pm. This is more than the conventional coffee farming wage of eight soles a day, but not much more. The levels of pay may seem relatively low to us, but I'm sure a 25% pay rise would make most people smile. Bernard Mason, Farnborough, UK Supermarkets sell fair trade goods because they have larger profit margins. How much of the price difference between a normal product and a fair trade one actually go to the farmer? Usually a tiny percentage of it. If I thought the extra 50p I'm paying was going to the farmer rather than the supermarket, I'd buy a fair trade product. Until then, I'd prefer to donate money to charities who are honest about their admin and central costs, and about how much actually reaches the people its aimed at. Sally, UK I think it is more than worth it. I am from Mexico and a few pennies do make a big difference for these farmers who are not subsidised and I have known personally. In my country many people prefer to buy imported fruit, veg and even meat in Walmart than go to the local market and buy them from the immediate farmer. Anahi, Aberdeen I have supported fair trade since visiting Saint Lucia some years ago. It is because of support for the small local growers that they have been enabled to stand up against the large, mainland companies who flooded the market with cheap product. As long as there is a USP which sells then price is not the major buying criterion - that USP may be quality, or it may be something less tangible, like the consumer's good feeling that a sustainably "generous" payment is going to the grower. That is not charity, it is good marketing, but it can have the same positive results. Simon Meeds, Bristol If I were a poor farmer, I would definitely prefer fairer wages than being exploited and having no way out. If I were short sighted enough not to use any extra income to invest in my children's education and health, then it would be my fault if I remain dependent on "charity-minded shoppers in the West". The Fairtrade movement is at least giving me the choice to get me, my family and my community out of the poverty trap created by unfair trade policies. Joanne Wong, Coventry Name Your e-mail address Town/city and country Your comment The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide. Terms & Conditions E-mail this to a friend Printable version

RECYCLING TEXTILES HOW IT GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE

Textile recycling information sheet

why bother?	what you can do
how's, what's and where's of recycling textiles	useful contacts

Textile recycling originated in the Yorkshire Dales about 200 years ago. These days the 'rag and bone' men are textile reclamation businesses, which collect textiles for reuse (often abroad), and send material to the 'wiping' and 'flocking' industry and fibres to be reclaimed to make new garments. Textiles made from both natural and man-made fibres can be recycled.

Why bother?

top of page It is estimated that more than 1 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year, with most of this coming from household sources. Textiles make up about 3% by weight of a household bin. At least 50% of the textiles we throw away are recyclable, however, the proportion of textile wastes reused or recycled annually in the UK is only around 25%.

Source:Analysis of household waste composition and factors driving waste increases - Dr. J. Parfitt, WRAP, December 2002
Although the majority of textile waste originates from household sources, waste textiles also arise during yarn and fabric manufacture, garment-making processes and from the retail industry. These are termed post-industrial waste, as opposed to the post-consumer waste which goes to jumble sales and charity shops. Together they provide a vast potential for recovery and recycling.
Recovery and recycling provide both environmental and economic benefits. Textile recovery:

• Reduces the need for landfill space. Textiles present particular problems in landfill as synthetic (man-made fibres) products will not decompose, while woollen garments do decompose and produce methane, which contributes to global warming.
• Reduces pressure on virgin resources.
• Aids the balance of payments as we import fewer materials for our needs.
• Results in less pollution and energy savings, as fibres do not have to be transported from abroad.

If everyone in the UK bought one reclaimed woollen garment each year, it would save an average of 371 million gallons of water (the average UK reservoir holds about 300 million gallons) and 480 tonnes of chemical dyestuffs. (Evergreen)

Reclaiming fibre avoids many of the polluting and energy intensive processes needed to make textiles from virgin materials, including: -

• Savings on energy consumption when processing, as items do not need to be re-dyed or scoured.
• Less effluent, as unlike raw wool, it does not have to be thoroughly washed using large volumes of water.
• Reduction of demand for dyes and fixing agents and the problems caused by their use and manufacture.

How's, what's and where's of recycling textiles

top of page The majority of post-consumer textiles are currently collected by charities like The Salvation Army, Scope and Oxfam. Some charities, for example Oxfam and The Salvation Army, sort collected material selling it on to merchants in the appropriate sectors.

Over 70% of the world's population use second hand clothes.(Textiles on line)

Some post-industrial waste is recycled 'in-house', usually in the yarn and fabric manufacturing sector. The rest, aside from going to landfill or incineration, is sent to merchants.

Collection Methods

At present the consumer has the option of putting textiles in 'clothes banks', taking them to charity shops or having them picked up for a jumble sale.
Recyclatex, a scheme run by the Textile Recycling Association in conjunction with local authorities and charities, provides textile banks for public use. The Salvation Army, Scope, and Oxfam also use a bank scheme in conjunction with other methods. Scope, for example, runs a national door-to-door textile collection service. There are about 3,000 textile banks nationwide, but clothes banks are only operating at about 25% capacity.
The Salvation Army is the largest operator of textile banks in the UK, with over 2,000 banks nationwide. On average, each of these banks is estimated to collect about six tonnes of textiles per year. Combined with door-to-door collections, The Salvation Army's textile recycling operations account for the processing of in excess of 17,000 tonnes of clothing a year. Clothes are given to the homeless, sold in charity shops or sold in developing countries in Africa, the Indian sub-continent and parts of Eastern Europe. Nearly 70% of items put into clothing banks are reused as clothes, and any un-wearable items are sold to merchants to be recycled and used as factory wiping cloths.

The average lifetime of a garment is about three years. (textiles on line)

Unsold and un-wearable clothing is sent to Oxfam's Wastesaver, a textile recycling plant in Huddersfield. These clothes are sold as raw materials to the textile recycling industry. Wastesaver handles about 100 tonnes a week.
The European Recycling Company Limited operates a network of collecting points for second-hand shoes, most of which are re-usable. The shoes are sorted according to their condition and then sold into developing countries, where they are locally reconditioned and resold at affordable prices in those areas. A pilot research study is being carried out in Germany to create techniques for reprocessing excess shoe materials into alternative products, such as sound insulation board.

Processing and Outlets for Waste Textiles

All collected textiles are sorted and graded by highly skilled, experienced workers, who are able to recognise the large variety of fibre types resulting from the introduction of synthetics and blended fibre fabrics. Once sorted the items are sent to various destinations as outlined below:

WEARABLE TEXTILES
SHOES Resold abroad in countries like Pakistan, India, Africa and East European countries.	CLOTHES Resold in the U.K. and abroad. Oxfam's Wastesaver provides clothes to Mozambique, Malawi or Angola for emergency use, as well as providing warm winter clothing to former Yugoslavia, Albania, Afghanistan and Northern Iraq.

UNWEARABLE TEXTILES
TROUSERS, SKIRTS, ETC.Sold to the 'flocking' industry. Items are shredded for fillers in car insulation, roofing felts, loudspeaker cones, panel linings, furniture padding etc.	WOOLLEN GARMENTSSold to specialist firms for fibre reclamation to make yarn or fabric.	COTTON AND SILKSorted into grades to make wiping cloths for a range of industries from automotive to mining, and for use in paper manufacture.

Post industrial waste is often reprocessed in house. Clippings from garment manufacture are also used by fibre reclaimers to make into garments, felt and blankets.
Some items will be reused by designers fashioning garments and bags from recovered items, however this is a very small sector within the overall destinations of textiles.

From the Textiles Recycling Association, published in A Way With Waste 1999.

The Fibre Reclamation Process

Mills grade incoming material into type and colour. The colour sorting means no re-dying has to take place, saving energy and pollutants. Initially the material is shredded into 'shoddy' (fibres). Depending on the end uses of the yarn e.g. a rug, other fibres are chosen to be blended with the shoddy. The blended mixture is carded to clean and mix the fibres, and spun ready for weaving or knitting.

The Recycling Scene

Evergreen produces yarns and fabrics from recycled fibres. Their most successful products are inblends spun from English and Chinese hemp and recycled denim, in addition to other recycled fibre blends containing wool, cashmere, silk and PET (polyester made from post-consumer recycled plastic drinks bottles and tencel, a fibre made from wool).
The reuse of clothes is promoting a new breed of designer. NoLoGo are a team of volunteer designers set up by Oxfam who restyle donated garments and fabrics, selling them on at some Oxfam shops.

The Recycled Products Guide has details of products made from recycled textiles. Available at www.recycledproducts.org.uk

The export market is rapidly growing as more market points are set up abroad. Some merchants also offer an array of services to encourage more collection, such as security uniform shredding prior to recycling.

What You Can Do

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• Take your used clothes to a textile bank. Contact the recycling officer in your local authority if there are no banks in your area and ask why; they may collect textiles through other means. Alternatively you can take used clothing to local charity shops.
• Give old clothes/shoes/curtains/handbags etc. to jumble sales. Remember to tie shoes together: part of the 6% of textiles which is wastage for merchants are single shoes.
• Buy second-hand clothes - you can often pick up unusual period pieces! If bought from a charity shop, it will also benefit a charity. 

UK DUSTBIN OF EUROPE..

UK 'landfill dustbin of Europe'

The UK could run out of landfill space in nine years' time The UK is the "dustbin of Europe", according to a new study. The UK dumps more household waste into landfill than any other country in the European Union, research by the Local Government Association shows. UK households sent 22.6 million tonnes of rubbish to landfill in 2004/5 - the most recent year for which comparable figures are available across the EU. However, government figures for 2006/7 show households recycled record amounts and levels of landfill waste fell. Between 2005/6 and 2006/7, the proportion of household waste which was recycled or composted rose from 27.1% to 30.7%, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. And the amount being sent to landfill fell from 17.9 million tonnes to 16.9 million tonnes. The LGA said that indications were that other European countries had also cut their landfill amounts since 2005, leaving the UK still "at the top of the rubbish heap". The UK came top in 2004/5 for overall amount of rubbish dumped, but third behind Bulgaria and the Irish Republic when the amount per head of population was calculated. The LGA warned that an area of 109 square miles was already used as landfill in the UK. The association, which represents councils in England, said that if the current trend continued, the UK could run out of landfill space in under nine years. The figures for 2004/5 show the UK sent the same amount of rubbish to landfill as the 18 EU countries with the lowest landfill rates combined, despite those countries having almost twice the population. The other countries with the highest amount of household rubbish thrown into landfill were Italy at 17.6 million tonnes and Spain at 14.2m. France sent around 12 million tonnes to landfill, Poland 8.6m and Germany 7.3m. The LGA said bold reforms on rubbish disposal were needed otherwise recycling rates will not rise fast enough to meet the EU Landfill Directive. The directive sets the UK a number of targets, including that by 2020 the amount of biodegradable municipal waste, including household rubbish, sent to landfill should be no more than 35% of the amount produced in 1995. For decades people have been used to being able to throw their rubbish away without worrying about the consequences. Those days are now over Paul Bettison Local Government Association Recycling around Europe In the future, councils, and consequently the taxpayer, are facing fines of up to £150 per tonne of rubbish over their "allowance" that is sent to landfill sites. Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA's environment board, said: "For decades people have been used to being able to throw their rubbish away without worrying about the consequences. Those days are now over. "Local people, businesses and councils all have a vital role to play to protect our countryside before it becomes buried in a mountain of rubbish." He said it was encouraging to see that people were recycling more, but added: "The fact remains other countries on the continent are still recycling up to twice as much." A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs acknowledged the need to do more. It said: "We still lag behind much of Europe and we cannot afford to be complacent. We need to keep raising our performance if we are to meet future challenging landfill targets."

old ceremonial raffia cloths of the kuba people

Old ceremonial complete, multi-panel skirts / tcaka / ntshak / ntsak, with patchwork / pagne;
Wickelgewand / Wickeltuch
of the Bakuba / Kuba / Bushong / Bushoong / Bushongo / Ngeende / Ngongo tribe/people
from Congo / DRC / formerly Zaire

Various people are united in the Bakuba/Kuba kingdom, including the leading Bushong/Bushoong/Bushongo, the Ngeende and the Ngongo.

Many small rectangular mats were woven separately, hemmed and sewed together to make long wrap-around ceremonial dance skirts.
The dark colours were prepared from burned leaves.
The red colour was prepared from wet, small pieces of wood from the Tukula tree.
Each piece took months to make.
These skirts were worn wrapped multiple times.

The following are fragments from a text written by Duncan Clarke on the
Adire African Art WWW site:
“The embroidered and appliqué decorated raffia cloths of the Kuba peoples of the Kasai river region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) are the best known survivors of an ancient African tradition of fine quality raffia cloth weaving that was once widespread across the whole of Central Africa. Similar embroidered cloths from the Kongo kingdom on the coast to the west were greatly admired in post-Renaissance Europe and entered the curio cabinets and treasuries of nobles and kings as the finest products of African artistry
…
More recently their mastery of abstract patterning was a source of inspiration to artists such as Klee, and Matisse, who displayed part of his large collection on the wall of his studio.The Kuba are a diverse group of peoples who at least until recently had a number of distinct sub-styles of raffia cloth decoration. The main ceremonial occasions and court rituals for which long raffia dance skirts and embroidered cloth panels, mbal, were once produced are quite rare events today. The continued survival of the techniques in an age where most Kuba people wear factory produced cloth for everyday dress is mainly due to the importance of embroidered and appliqué cloth in funeral celebrations. Fine cloths are accumulated within the matrilineages over several generations, with much debate over which examples are suitable for use in the ceremonial presentations and exchanges accompanying funerals. Kuba apparently believe that they would not be recognised by their clan ancestors in the land of the dead unless they were correctly dressed in high quality raffia textiles.
…
Among the Kuba peoples of the Kasai river region in Congo men are responsible for the weaving of raffia cloth, but once the cloth is complete it is the responsibility of women to prepare it for decoration.
The cloth as woven is stiff and rough with loose and uneven edges. Even for everyday use it must be hemmed and softened before it can be sewn into a larger garment. If it is to form one of the main prestige garments, the dancing skirt, it will be softened by pounding it in a large wooden mortar, and in some cases treated with a wine-red or brown dye.
It was previously thought that the actual process of decorating the cloths was done only by women, but recent research by Patricia Darish suggests that men are responsible for decorating the rectangular skirts that they wear themselves, while women decorate smaller female dancing skirts and cut-pile embroidered panels.
Among the decorative techniques that both men and women may use are certain types of embroidery, appliqué and reverse appliqué, patchwork, dyeing, and tie dyeing.
Women's dance skirts are up to nine yards in length, being wound several times around the body and folded down over a belt.
The men's skirts are significantly longer and normally have distinct borders often with a fringe of raffia bobbles.
Appliqué, often outlined and emphasized by sewing around the design area with a darker thread, is one of the two most important decorative techniques utilised on Kuba ceremonial textiles. It has been suggested that the use of appliqué among the Kuba arose out of the need to repair the holes in cloth caused by the rigorous pounding of the woven raffia required to achieve the desired softness. Right-angled, rectangular, or circular patches are sewn over the holes that emerge in the softening process, while other patches are then sewn on undamaged areas of the cloth to balance the overall visual effect.
Support for the idea that this may be the origin of the use of appliqué is provided by examining some of the oldest Kuba dance skirts in museum collections. The bulk of the patches on some of these do seem to have been motivated by the need to repair holes and achieve a balanced design, with quite large areas of cloth left plain. In later examples there is a tendency to cover the whole surface of the cloth with appliqué, often including some figurative designs.”
To more information in the text by Ann E. Svenson,

African cloth

The main method of decorating cloth throughout Africa is the dyeing of thread or completed cloths. Although there were a small range of locally produced plant dyes that allowed weavers in most areas to produce a few shades of brown, green, yellow, and in some cases red, by far the most important dye in Africa has been indigo. The vast majority of cloth produced on the continent over the centuries was simple designs produced by combining the natural white (and sometimes beige) of the cotton fibres with stripes of various shades of indigo blue. Depending on the relative density of the warp and weft threads, the resulting cloths could have stripes down the strip (warp- faced) or across the strip (weft-faced.)

warp faced cloth	weft faced cloth

Dyeing was itself an important business at which high degrees of specialist skill was developed in centres such as the Hausa city of Kano. Very thin, fine quality, narrow-strip cloth dyed a dark indigo in villages near Kano, then carefully beaten with extra indigo paste by specialist cloth beaters until it took on a glazed sheen, are still an extremely expensive and highly valued cloth worn as face veils by Tuareg and other nomads throughout North Africa. See our indigo dyeing page.
In addition to pattern effects such as stripes and checks produced by varying the colours of thread used, African weavers utilise a limited set of decorative techniques in the process of weaving cloth. These include float weaving, where extra threads float across, or more rarely down, a piece of cloth, openwork, pile weave, and more rarely tapestry weave, and weft inserts.

supplementary weft float - extra design weft threads float across the strip.	supplementary warp float - extra design warp threads float down the strip.
openwork - in typical Yoruba style with threads floated down cloth strip	pile weave on an Ijebu Yoruba shawl

There are also a number of techniques used to decorate a cloth after it has been woven. Most of these had their origins in the indigenous weaving industry but have later been applied to the decoration of imported cloth. Dyers have utilised a variety of methods of resist dyeing, i.e. the dyeing of thread or fabric which has been treated so that part of it resists the dye, leaving a pattern on the cloth. These include ikat weaving among the Baule of Côte D'Ivoire and the Yoruba of Nigeria and a number of traditions that utilise starch resist or tie and dye, of which the adire of the Yoruba is best known. A separate and unique method of dyeing is used to produce the mud-dyed bogolanfini in Mali. The Asante of Ghana utilise a type of printing using stamps made from sections of calabash shell to produce a patterned cloth called adinkra. Embroidery is found in numerous styles, including on the Kuba raffia cloths of Congo and the robes of northern Nigeria. Finally there are a few distinct traditions of applique, where sections from different cloths are sewn together to make designs. Among the best known of these are the flags of the Fon kings of precolonial Danhome, and the Asafo war flags of the Fante companies of coastal Ghana.

Textile recycling assoiation

Textiles

* FOR our textiles price indicators, click on the Textiles Prices Archive link to the left - or you can also see below for 2012 price indicators *

Despite currency and demand fluctuations in overseas markets, demand for used clothing from the UK has remained generally good over the past few years.

Most UK clothing material is collected via the bank system and from charity shops, although an increasing amount is also collected door-to-door.

While selling second hand clothes in the UK is still an option, especially through charity shops, increasingly clothes are exported for sale in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In addition, material which is not used for clothing can often be turned into wiping cloths and specifications have also been drawn up for these by the wiper and cloth manufacturers division of the Textile Recycling Association.

In recent years the UK textiles industry has come under increasing pressure. In particular, competition from sorting businesses in Eastern Europe has forced some companies to move their sorting operations out of the UK to similar regions. At the same time, political and currency issues also impact on the market.

In the UK, the second hand trade has suffered from the dual problem created by the expansion of cheap clothing shops and 'fast fashion' — discouraging people from buying second hand clothes while meaning clothes can be less durable when they do eventually enter the second hand market.

Following the economic downturn in late 2008, textile recyclers also expressed concerns that the amount of clothing entering the second hand market could decline as householders keep hold of clothing for longer.

Disposal

The majority of textiles thrown out by households ends up in landfill, with Defra estimating that 1.5 million tonnes a year of unwanted clothing is eventually landfilled. Meanwhile, the Textile Recycling Association has estimated that in excess of 400,000 tonnes of textiles was collected and recycled in 2008.

As part of the Waste Strategy for England 2007, Defra identified clothing as one of 10 priority areas that would be examined within its Sustainable Consumption and Production work. The first stakeholder event for the Sustainable Clothing Roadmap was held in September 2007, and as well as launching an evidence project examining just how to maximise textile recycling and reuse, the question of introducing producer responsibility for textiles has also been raised.

In February 2009 the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan, which saw key stakeholders in the textile industry outline just how they planned to increase their sustainability, was launched.

The high price of textiles has prompted concerns over widespread theft of material from both textile banks and door-to-door collection bags, with some claiming organised criminals are involved. In January 2011, the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, held a round-table meeting involving representatives from the textile recycling industry, charities, regulatory bodies and police to address the issue of bogus textile collections.

Textile prices 2012

Three textile guide price categories are shown here:

• Textile banks - this reflects the amount that may be paid to a local authority or a waste management company, usually by a collector for material from textile banks. The payment may be amended if the local authority has to pay a bank hire fee or an element of the collection costs and if a donation is made to a charity.
• Shop collections - this price indicates the amount which may be paid by a collector to a charity shop for clothes the shop has not sold to the public directly. Prices vary on content from poorer quality material through to clothes and leather items.
• Charity rags - this is a general term for material, usually well-presented and often from charity shop collections, delivered to the factory of a larger textile collecting business which often exports used clothing and textiles.

Prices are £ per tonne of material

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Textile banks	270 - 340	260 - 350	260 - 360	260 - 360	260 - 360
Shop collections	490 - 550	500 - 560	500 - 560	500 - 560	500 - 570
Charity rags	580 - 650	600 - 670	610 - 690	610 - 700	620 - 700
	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Textile banks
Shop collections
Charity rags

Prices are £ per tonne of material

WHY RECYCLE?

So the important question is: why recycle textiles? The global issues surrounding the environment and the contentious use of landfill has never been more prominent and I&G Cohen are determined to divert as much textile waste as possible from landfill sites.
Did You Know?

• Over 1 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year mostly from domestic sources, of which only 25% are recycled.
• Textiles represent between 3% - 5% of household waste.
• Estimates for arising of textile waste vary between 550,000 - 900,000 tonnes each year.
• Recycling textiles can save up to 15 times the energy recoverable by incineration.
• Textiles make up 12% of landfill sites
• In one year discarded clothing would fill Old Trafford Football Stadium
• If everyone in the UK bought one reclaimed woollen garment each year, it would save an average of 371 million gallons of water, (the average UK reservoir holds about 300 million gallons) and 480 tonnes of chemical dyestuffs- (source: evergreen)
• There are about 6,000 textile banks nationwide, but clothes banks are only operating at about 25% capacity
• Over 70% of the world's population use second hand clothes
• Discarded clothing and shoes are typically sent to landfill. Textiles present particular problems in landfill. Synthetic (man-made fibres) products do not decompose. Woollen garments do decompose, but in doing so they produce methane, which contributes to global warming and climate change. This is an ominous warning which only highlights the importance of recycling in textiles.

What are the benefits of recycling?
When asking why recycle textiles there are further benefits that extend outside the immediate environmental positives. Recycling in textiles in the UK provides an affordable source of clothing to disadvantaged people in the developing world and emerging countries in Eastern Europe. In many of these countries it also provides the basis of economic growth by providing employment for much of the population.
Alan Wheeler of the Textile Recycling Association confirms this when he says this "clothing recycling is not only good for the environment, but also that it has an important social and economic role to play. The benefits extend to the UK where we estimate that private textile reclamation businesses employ around 5 - 10,000 people, with a further 9,500 employed in UK charity shops. The public and politicians should be fully aware of the crucial contributions this industry makes to the world economy and sustainable development."
Our work at I&G also provides a help to local authorities and local communities. For example local councils such as Gateshead Council currently pay about £30 for every tonne of material sent to landfill. If we multiply this by waste produced by Gateshead residents' last year, then the 115,000 tonnes of gives a waste disposal bill of over £2 million pounds. We can help these local councils save money particularly during this current economic climate by diverting textile waste from landfill and therefore cutting local council’s waste expenditure.
On a positive note according to DEFRA, in 2008-9 the total waste collected from the UK's 25m households dropped slightly to 24.3m tonnes. Of this, 9.1m tonnes were recycled. Almost all of the remainder went to landfill. A DEFRA spokesman claims, "We can't keep on sending textile waste to landfill, People are already reducing the amount of waste they produce, and are reusing and recycling more, and we are working hard to increase this,"
What Can I Do? Take your used clothes to a textile recycling bank. Contact the recycling officer in your local authority if there are no banks in your area and ask why not? They may collect textiles through other means.
Or next time one of our care2collect bags comes through your door put some of your unwanted clothing in and we will happily collect your used goods, averting textile waste from landfill whilst working on behalf of a number of worthwhile charities.
Where can I get more information?
There are lots of great sites to visit to find out more about textile recycling and recycling in general. These are just a few:
The Textile Recycling Association >

Textiles

• Just the Facts
• Collecting Textiles
• Recycling Textiles

Fleece, flannel, corduroy, cotton, nylon, denim, wool, and linen. What can you do with these fibers when you’re finished wearing them, sleeping on them, or draping them over your windows? One way to benefit both your community and the environment is to donate used textiles to charitable organizations. Most recovered household textiles end up at these organizations, who sell or donate the majority of these products. The remainder go to either a textile recovery facility or the landfill.

Just the Facts

• An estimated 13.1 million tons of textiles were generated in 2010, or 5.3 percent of total municipal solid waste (MSW) generation.
• An estimated 14.0 percent of textiles in clothing and footwear and 17.1 percent of items such as sheets and pillowcases was recovered for export or reprocessing in 2010.
• The recovery rate for all textiles was 15.0 percent in 2010, 2.0 million tons.

Collecting Textiles

More Textiles Information

The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles (SMART) Association is working to increase the amount of textile waste that can be recovered while developing new uses, products and markets for products derived from preconsumer and postconsumer textile waste.
The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service has created a fact sheet on household textile and apparel recycling (PDF) (4 pp, 1.6MB, about PDF) .

Textiles typically are not sorted at the point of collection, but keeping them clean and free from moisture is important. Once clothes get wet, stained, or mildewed, they cannot be sold for reuse. To prevent contamination, many charities offer enclosed drop-off boxes for clothing or other fabrics. Communities with curbside collection for textiles should educate donors on how to properly bag clothing.

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Recycling Textiles

Textile recovery facilities separate overly worn or stained clothing into a variety of categories. Based on data from the Council for Textile Recycling, it was estimated that 1.3 million tons of textiles in clothing were recovered for recycling in 2009. Some recovered textiles become wiping and polishing cloths. Cotton can be made into rags or form a component for new high-quality paper. Knitted or woven woolens and similar materials are "pulled" into a fibrous state for reuse by the textile industry in low-grade applications, such as car insulation or seat stuffing. Other types of fabric can be reprocessed into fibers for upholstery, insulation, and even building materials. Buttons and zippers are stripped off for reuse. Very little is left over at the end of the recycling process. The remaining natural materials, such as various grades of cotton, can be composted.

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How long it takes for waste to degrade

How long does it take for waste materials to decompose?

By Danny

How long does it take a plastic bag to break down or a glass bottle to decompose? What about a milk carton or a Styrofoam cup?
Sources for rates of decomposition of litter (trash) on the web give you different rates. Once you’ve done quite a few of these searches, you realise that it boils down to about three different lists, all repeatedly quoted (but not always mentioned as the source):

1. The New York Times (Nemve E. Metropolitan Diary, October 1, 2001):
Paper- 2.5 months; Orange Peel- 6 months; Milk Carton- 5 years; Cigarette Butt- 10-12 years; Plastic bag- 10-20 years; Disposable diaper- 75 years; Tin can- 100 years; Beer can- 200-500 years; Styrofoam- never (immortal)

2. Penn State University*: Paper-2-4 Weeks; Leaves-1-3 Months; Orange Peel- 6 Months; Milk Carton- 5 years; Plastic Bag- 10-20 Years; Plastic Container- 50-80 Years; Aluminium Can- 80 Years; Tin Can- 100 Years; Plastic Soda Bottle- 450 Years; Glass Bottle-500 Years; Styrofoam-Never.
*This list is widely quoted, but I could never actually find the original source.

3. “Pocket Guide to Marine Debris,” The Ocean Conservancy, 2004*
Paper towel – 2-4 weeks; Orange or banana peel- 2-5 weeks; Newspaper- 6 weeks; Apple core- 2 months ; Waxed milk carton- 3 months; Plywood- 1-3 years; Wool sock- 1-5 years; Cigarette filter- 1-50 years; Plastic Bag- 10-20 years; Plastic film canister- 20-30 years ; Nylon Fabric- 30-40 years; Leather- 50 years; Tin can- 50 years; Foamed plastic cup- 50 years; Rubber boat sole- 50-80 years; Foamed plastic buoy- 80 years; Aluminium can- 80-200 year ; Disposable diapers- 450 years; Plastic beverage bottles- 450 year; Plastic beverage bottles- 450 year; Monofilament fishing line- 600 years; Glass Bottle- 1,000,000 years.
* Quoted in U.S National Park Service; Mote Marine Lab, FL and “Garbage In, Garbage Out,” Audobon Magazine, Spt/Oct 1998.

So what does all this mean, and how do we explain differences above?
Lets separate the first two lists from the third. People seem to have missed the word “ocean” in the source, and it stands to reason that degradation at sea for some materials would be different to that on dry land.

Then there’s some clear overlap between the first two lists, so it is likely the NY Times article was using the Penn State info to some degree, and topping it up from other sources.

Then a couple of further observations:

1. Plastic bags: Although all three lists above say it takes 10-20 years for a plastic bag to degrade, there are quite a few references on the Net saying that plastic bags actually take hundreds of years to degrade. So where does this discrepancy come from? Well, it seems that scientists don’t actually know the answer to that one, although the time it takes a plastic bag to degrade is obviously a lot longer than on the lists popularly quoted on the Internet.

2. Different rates of breakdown: It turns out that materials decompose differently depending on a lot of factors, including temperature, oxygen levels and many others. One important factor is the presence of water. Many landfill sites are hermetically sealed with plastic (and covered at night), so water doesn’t seep into the waste. Ohio State University has shown that adding water to waste sites increases their rate of decomposition. And of course material degrades differently in the ocean.

Context: Where does most household garbage eventually end up once it leaves the home? Clearly in landfills. That’s where the next set of stats should come from.

Happy recycling!

http://www.thatdanny.com/2008/06/06/how-long-does-it-take-a-plastic-bag-or-a-glass-bottle-to-decompose/

How long does it take for plastics to biodegrade?

by William Harris

Drop a ketchup bottle on the floor, and you'll be thankful for polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the nearly indestructible plastic used to make most containers and bottles. Drop the same bottle into a landfill, however, and you might have second thoughts. Why? Because petroleum-based plastics like PET don't decompose the same way organic material does. Wood, grass and food scraps undergo a process known as biodegradation when they're buried, which is a fancy way of saying they're transformed by bacteria in the soil into other useful compounds. But bacteria turn up their noses at plastic. Load their dinner plates with some plastic bags and bottles, and the one-celled gluttons will skip the meal entirely.

Based on this logic, it's safe to argue that plastic will never biodegrade. Of course, that's not the end of the story. Daniel Burd, a student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, recently demonstrated that certain types of bacteria can break down plastic. His research earned the top prize at the Canada-wide Science Fair, earning him $10,000 cash and a $20,000 scholarship [source: Kawawada].

Until other researchers can replicate Burd's experiment and waste treatment plants can implement any new processes, the only real way to break down plastic is through photodegradation. This kind of decomposition requires sunlight, not bacteria. When UV rays strike plastic, they break the bonds holding the long molecular chain together. Over time, this can turn a big piece of plastic into lots of little pieces.

Of course, plastic buried in a landfill rarely sees the light of day. But in the ocean, which is where a lot of discarded grocery bags, soft drink bottles and six-pack rings end up, plastic is bathed in as much light as water. In 2009, researchers from Nihon University in Chiba, Japan, found that plastic in warm ocean water can degrade in as little as a year. This doesn't sound so bad until you realize those small bits of plastic are toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) and PS oligomer. These end up in the guts of animals or wash up on shorelines, where humans are most likely to come into direct contact with the toxins.

One solution to this environmental disaster is biodegradable plastic. There are two types currently on the market -- plant-based hydro-biodegradable plastic and petroleum-based oxo-biodegradable plastic. In the former category, polylactic acid (PLA), a plastic made from corn, tops the list as the most talked-about alternative. PLA decomposes into water and carbon dioxide in 47 to 90 days -- four times faster than a PET-based bag floating in the ocean. But conditions have to be just right to achieve these kinds of results. PLA breaks down most efficiently in commercial composting facilities at high temperatures. When buried in a landfill, a plastic bag made from corn may remain intact just as long as a plastic bag made from oil or natural gas.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/how-long-does-it-take-for-plastics-to-biodegrade.htm

Posted by Alice