Landfill: Textile Waste

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to reduce the amount of textile waste sent to landfill.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, we are working with the Waste and Resources Action Programme—WRAP—and organisations from across the clothing life cycle to reduce of amount of textile waste sent to landfill and minimise environmental impacts. This includes action with designers and manufacturers to increase clothing durability, work to promote greater reuse and recycling of textiles and action to influence consumer behaviour through the Love Your Clothes campaign.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, we can all do more to make our clothes last longer and look at innovative ways to do so. To that end, all noble Lords are invited to a swishing event tomorrow in Committee Room G, 5 pm to 7 pm, hosted by the APPG on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion. I declare an interest as a trustee of WRAP, which leads the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan—SCAP—which is focused on diverting textiles from landfill. Can my noble friend inform the House what progress SCAP is making?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, my noble friend’s initiative sounds very interesting and noble Lords, including those who are not in the Chamber, may well want to go. So far as SCAP is concerned, I am very pleased to say that only last week Primark, one of the UK’s largest clothing retailers, became the latest business to sign up to SCAP. This means that SCAP now represents 65% of clothes sold in the UK by volume. This clearly shows the enormous potential for this agreement.