French used textile collector Le Relais is significantly scaling back its collection activities in response to increasingly unsustainable conditions in the textile collection market. The company said it would remove almost 4,300 textile collection containers by the end of the year, reducing annual collections of textiles, household linen and footwear by around 15,000 tonnes. The measure is expected to affect around 60 jobs created through labour market integration programmes.
Le Relais said the difficult decision followed several months of steadily worsening economic conditions for textile collection, sorting and recovery. According to the company, collecting some textile streams currently costs around €250 per tonne, while the recovered material generates only about €150 per tonne. Continuing these collections would jeopardise the company's economic viability, it said....
