Dubliners get a bit more transparency around where some old clothes end up

Going forward, about 15 percent of the clothes left by Dubliners at textile banks around the city should be resold at charity shops within Ireland, according to a note to Dublin city councillors.

The rest should be sorted and graded, with only the reusable items resold on to markets worldwide, and recyclable items sold just to markets in Europe and the United Kingdom, it said.

Any unreusable items, waste basically, is to be sold for “energy recovery” – so, to be burned to help generate heat or electricity – in Northern Ireland, it said. That’s usually less than 5 percent of the stuff collected. 

The note comes ahead of the new contract for the city’s textile banks kicking in on 13 April. 

Clothes Pod, which had managed the city’s textiles waste for years, is leaving the scene. The new operator is the commercial division of Enable Ireland, a charity providing supports to people with physical, sensory, and intellectual disabilities.

A spokesperson for Enable Ireland said that it is adding 56 banks in the Dublin City Council area, bringing its network to more than 200 banks.

Any income it makes from reselling quality used clothes at its 28 charity shops goes towards funding the charity’s services, they said. 

Solene Schirrer, a project manager with Voice Ireland, an environmental charity, said she is surprised – in a good way – at the detail and greater transparency around how the clothes are to be processed, under the new contract.

The greater detail around traceability that the council had asked for in its tender is welcome, Schirrer said. 

She would love to see more of the detailed data on whether clothes end up widely released, she said. “I hope that this would be available to the public.”

Councillors had long called for greater sight of where Dubliners’ old clothes go, to make sure that garments in bad condition and of poor quality aren’t just being dumped on poorer countries.

Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney said the note and the new arrangement for the city's on-street textile banks was a great improvement. That’s really welcome, she said. 

She, also, though still wants a regular release of the hard data on where clothes end up, she said. 

More awareness and figures would help in building a campaign to end fast fashion, said Cooney, and help create the conditions for what she would envisage a “circular economy” should mean.

What’s the plan?

A lack of data on the end destination of Ireland’s textiles had led Voice Ireland to do its own research.

In November, it published the findings of its work tracking 23 items left at clothes banks and in-shop take-back schemes across the country, using airtags. 

“Of the items tracked, only 7 were confidently verified as reused, with most either exported outside the EU or lost to ambiguous, untraceable fates,” its investigation found.

A lack of transparency over where textile waste ends up is unacceptable, said the report. “With tax payers money involved, the system is in urgent need of reform, and accountability needs to be attributed across the board.”

When Dublin City Council drew up tender documents for a new contractor to handle the city’s used and discarded clothes, it included more stringent conditions around where those textiles end up.

And in its note to councillors earlier this month, it laid out its expectations as to what should now happen.

Items left should be collected and sorted at Enable’s Dublin warehouse, the note says. About 15 percent of what is collected should be sold in charity shops, with the profits from those used to fund services. 

Clothes that aren’t good for resale should be sold to Cookstown Textile Recyclers, it said, where they should be sorted into 229 separate grades based on the item and quality – which then determines where they are sent.

Cookstown Textile Recyclers has total control over the chain from collection to the end-market, the note said. Its sales team visit customers and the markets where textiles are sold every few months, it said.

“It’s great that the grading is taking place on the island,” said Schirrer of Voice Ireland. 

In other words, that there is greater assurance that waste and unreusable items aren’t exported under the label of reusable textiles and clothes, and just ending up in landfills elsewhere.

Cookstown Textile Recyclers did feature in a February 2023 report from the Changing Markets Foundation, that looked at used clothes imported into Kenya.

The report mentions a spot assessment of an imported bale bought in Nairobi, from Cookstown Textile Recyclers and Tradecrest. 

Of the items in the bail, 202 were higher grade, or “first and second camera”, while 173 were low grade and would be sold cheap before going to waste, the report said. 

A big issue generally with imports is the high proportion of synthetic clothes, it says.

Cookstown Textile Recyclers hasn’t yet responded to queries, including about the impact the use of low-grade synthetic materials by clothes manufacturers, sent by email on Thursday afternoon.

But a spokesperson for Enable Ireland said that when it comes to the lowest-grade items that they don’t resell in shops, those aren’t sold on as clothing.

They are sold in bulk to recycling reprocessing companies to use in mattresses, upholstery, felt for packing and soundproofing, they said. Meanwhile, damaged and soiled items are incinerated.

“Enable Ireland’s warehouse is zero waste to landfill,” they said, and “Our recycling partners also have Zero Waste to Landfill accreditation.”

Items are thoroughly sorted by recycling partners, “and that only suitable textiles are exported to markets outside of Ireland, where they are sold to customers for reuse or repurposing,” they said.

Voice Ireland’s report last November did also highlight how the quality of items was a factor in whether clothes were reused at their end destination. Eighty-five percent of the reused items were quality items made of natural fibres. 

Cooney, the Green Party councillor, said that even greater ongoing traceability and transparency would make it easier to check that items aren’t being shipped abroad just for landfill or incineration.

If they are, why not just own it and burn them here? she said.  

Any opacity as to what happens and why makes change in consumption difficult too, she said. “There’s no incentive then to move away from fabrics that are fast fashion and aren’t reusable.”

Schirrer, of Voice Ireland, said it is good that Cookstown Textile Recyclers has a “know your customer” approach, with long-standing export partners.

Looking ahead, Ireland has to bring in an Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) scheme by April 2028.

That must be designed around prevention first, Voice Ireland has said, with “eco-modulation fees that reward durability, mono-material design and effective reuse or recycling and tackles overproduction by indexing fees to volumes”.

Those collected fees could be used not just to support waste managers and operators within Ireland though, said Schirrer, but also entities internationally that are handling Ireland’s old textiles.

If operators in Ireland know who they are working with overseas, they can open that conversation, said Schirrer.