Clothing textiles waste

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I’m Adrian Jones, one of the co-founders of BlockTexx. We are a resource recovery industry based in Queensland. What we essentially do, is take what people perceive to be textile waste and we convert that into raw materials that are then used in industry. So we take polyester sheets and we covert those into polyester chips and cellulosic powder and we sell those raw materials on to industry, so saving textiles from landfill. We’ve met with Minister Ley and Assistant Minster Evans and we really appreciate the support that they’ve given to BlockTexx so far. I would encourage all Australians to buy a little less and demand a little more, and really think about what they do with their textiles at the end of life.

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Hi, I’m Anne Thompson from Worn Up, and we’re super excited to be here today at Australian Parliament House to show what can be done with waste textiles. We take back every uniform we make and collect uniforms from others, and we can turn them into tiles, dog beds and many useful materials that be used and have a second and third life. When you think about it, there are four million school children, and every school child wears a uniform, so you are looking at about nine hundred thousand tonnes of uniforms we could keep out of landfill. We’ve taken back about twenty-two tonnes in just three months, of offcuts from school uniforms. What we’d really love to see is every school in Australia enrolling in Worn Up so that we can take even more back and keep it out of landfill and put it into useful products that we can use commercially.

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Hi, my name is Anthony, I’m the Thread Together CEO and I’m thrilled to be at this Product Stewardship around textile waste. Thread Together is Australia’s highest ethical response to fashion excess. What that means is, about one third of all brand-new clothing goes from factory to landfill. Our mission and purpose is to save that clothing and to redistribute that to vulnerable people all around the country. Today we’re clothing around two thousand people, nationally, the way in which we do that is through a network of social service agencies and registered charities who connect us to those people. We’re working with survivors of domestic violence so they can arrive at a women’s refuge and access clothing immediately. It’s brand-new clothing, it’s giving them the opportunity to choose their wardrobe. We are also working extensively with those people that are vulnerable or at risk, they may be homeless, they may have lost their home through a recent bushfire, or recent flooding, they may have been subject to difficult circumstances during the pandemic. Where there is a need, we are working with individuals to provide that clothing to them.

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I’m Brooke Summers and I work with Cotton Australia. What I learned today was that we’ve got a lot of work to do and that collaboration is going to be a really critical part of how we move forward on this issue. We know that blends for example, are a real problem in terms of recyclability, so when consumers can choose 100% cotton, or 100% polyester, or 100% something, they know that that can actually then be dealt with at end of life. We need to be a part of this conversation, we need to be part of the solutions, and we think that cotton as a natural fibre that biodegrades, is recyclable and renewable, has a really important place in the circular economy of the future.

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Hi, my name is Camille Reed, and I’m the founder of the Australasian Circular Textile Association, better known as ACTA. My experience today at the National Textiles Round Table here in Canberra at Parliament House was a colourful one. We had a number of interested parties here from the textiles and clothing industry, talk about the future of circularity and sustainability for textiles. So as an industry body we were able to learn and observe, particularly some of those fundamental key changes that need to transition the industry from linear to circular. And through that we were able to hear a diverse range of views and insights. So the next steps for a more sustainable clothing and textile industry, would encompass the collaboration of many of the participants here today, ensuring that the peak bodies are working together in collaboration as I said, with key stakeholders and participants, and with government. It’s about devising some of those strategies and targets that are highly aspirational to ensure we that we are removing textiles from landfill and also treating them with the highest possible value. So we’re maintaining the integrity of textiles and ensuring that there is a recoverable pathway there, which gives everybody an opportunity to get involved.

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Hi, my name is Faye de Lantey and I am the Eco-Stylist for Salvo’s Stores. I am extremely passionate about textile waste. We’re coming together as a charity sector because there is so much that we can do with what’s already in existence. We really want to inspire, educate, and bring awareness to the collective, to think consciously about we’re doing with our clothes. We really can upcycle, reinvent, we can reimagine, repurpose, restyle. There is a world of possibility, and if we come together, we really can move the needle.

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Hi, I’m Veena Sahajwalla and I’m a professor at the University of New South Wales SMaRT Centre. At the SMaRT Centre we are all about developing new science, new technologies to recycle waste and convert them into value added products. Our whole new science of micro-recycling is all about taking waste materials like glass and textile and a whole range of other materials at a micro level, bringing it together and collectively that hybrid transforms itself into a whole new ceramic and in this case, it’s a green ceramic, fit for purpose.