Waste worry of 'Primark effect'

Landfill sites report up to a third of total waste arriving at their gates now is clothing or other textiles – up from just seven per cent five years ago.

The phenomenon has been blamed on the ready availability of cheap clothes – from discount stores like Primark and from supermarkets – which consumers are happy to discard, prompting calls today from a committee of MPs calls for action to persuade people to re-use or recycle clothes.

The Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee also calls for a massive reduction in the amount of food being thrown away, with councils ordered to collect scraps from every home to compost or turn into energy and a speedy ban on food being sent to landfill.

Councils should support households to compost at home, while schools, hospitals and groups of restaurants – including those in Parliament – should be encouraged to take part in local composting schemes, the committee says.

In a wide-ranging report into waste, MPs say the Government should impose tougher targets for the amount of household waste which is recycled to cut down on the amount sent to landfill.

It says a tax on cigarettes, drinks and chewing gum should be considered to help fund the cost of cleaning up after them, and urges a "more rational" scheme of incentives to get people recycling more after the chaotic failed attempts to introduce a "bin tax" on rubbish.

MPs accuse the Government of failing to focus enough on cutting waste from businesses, say the biggest firms should be forced to publish details of their recycling performance.

Committee chairman Michael Jack said: "Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) must give a clear lead on what it thinks the potential is for business to reduce its waste levels and increase its rates of recycling.

"At the same time it must encourage companies to take a completely new view of waste and see it as a valuable source of raw material which must not be squandered in these difficult economic times."

During their inquiry, the committee was told that more than a million tonnes of textiles were discarded each year, with a significant increase in recent years as cheap clothes have become readily available. Critics single out cut-price clothes retailer Primark for scrutiny.

"During our visit to the Viridor site at Beddington Farmlands, near Croydon, waste operatives told us that textile waste had increased from around seven per cent five years ago to around 30 per cent of total waste now – they labelled this the 'Primark effect'," said the committee.

"The company assumed the increase was due to a growing tendency for people to discard low-cost clothes quickly."

A Defra spokeswoman backed the call for all local authorities to collect food waste, saying they should all do it by 2020.

She said: "Our latest research is very encouraging as it shows that separate food waste collections are definitely working in the areas that are using them."