Lewisham Council is leading a procurement process for a single-provider framework to ‘significantly and cost-effectively’ increase the amount of textiles collected for reuse and recycling at several London council bring sites.

The London initiative, led by Lewisham and including the boroughs of Hounslow, Ealing, Harrow, Barnet, Sutton and Camden, was set up in response to a recently published WRAP report, ‘Valuing our Clothes’, which found that textiles – most of which are recyclable – make up three per cent of household waste per year. The report also found that in the UK over 30 per cent of clothing is still being discarded at costly landfill sites.

The boroughs have said that they now hope to decrease the amount of textiles sent to landfill by providing a new, ‘high-quality’ textiles recycling service for their residents.

According to Lewisham council, local authorities have been under increasing financial strain due to the Spending Review 2011-15 and have faced ‘increasing challenges to reduce costs while maintaining and improving service standards, meaning that they are having to move away from traditional models of organisation and find new, innovative ways to deliver services’.

As part of this innovative shift in services, the London councils have now placed a notice on the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) website, calling for suppliers, including those in the charity sector, to express an interest in being appointed to the framework and complete the relevant documentation.

As well as maintaining and emptying textile bring bank sites that currently exist in the participating London boroughs, the contract, which is set to begin in April 2013, will see the chosen provider also set up new textile bring-banks to give Londoners ‘greater opportunities to recycle textile items such as bedding, old clothes and shoes’.

There are five main objectives of the project for the boroughs involved:

• Increasing tonnage diversion from ‘costly landfill sites’ whilst ‘maximising’ re-use opportunities
• Delivering a ‘high quality service’ for residents in the capital
• Expanding London’s textile bring-site provision
• Giving Londoners ‘more choice and opportunity’ to recycle their textiles
• Realising ‘social benefits’.

Charity concerns

When the plans were first proposed in February of this year, charities and voluntary groups voiced strong opposition, fearing that they could be made to pay to use bring-banks. These fears were realised when earlier this year, Bromley Council refused to reverse its decision to stop charities from using clothing recycling banks for free, despite a petition launched by the charity Scope gaining over 1,400 signatures.

However, Lewisham council has suggested that under the new contract, exsting charity textile bring-banks will be left in place. ‘The majority of boroughs will be leaving existing charity banks in place, or already have existing commercial operators in place, meaning that the impact on the charity sector will be minimal’, the council said.

The London Waste & Recycling Board (LWARB) added: “LWARB has had recent positive dialogue with the charities to look at working together to optimise textiles capture and reuse for London and will look to work with charities going forwards."

In a recent statement, a spokesperson for the Charity Retail Association said: “We welcome the aspiration set out by the London Borough of Lewisham as the lead borough for this joint contract that charity shops will continue to benefit from receiving textiles. As ever, the devil will be in the contractual detail, which will dictate whether charities will be able to compete on a level playing field with commercial companies.

"The Association has been working with the consortium and with LWARB over recent months to discuss our concerns about the difficulties for charity shops in competing in this kind of process, particularly following our campaign earlier this year in the London Borough of Bromley where the charity Scope was evicted from the textile bring bank sites altogether in favour of a commercial operator.

“We are pleased that the seven consortium boroughs have committed to allowing charities to retain their existing textile bank sites, and we hope they will also support them to take advantage of these new opportunities so that they can re-use more, helping local authorities meet their recycling targets and also raising money for charity at the same time.”

The deadline for expressions of interest is Friday 14 December 2012, and the deadline for completed tenders is 12 noon on Friday 21 December 2012.

Read more about the London textile bank procurement.