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Textile Waste Recycling

We plan to recycle your old clothes and household linens into beautiful new yarn, knitwear and homewares.

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We’re collaborating with a Hongkongese textile manufacturer who have dramatically improved the fibre recycling process.

Their state–of–the–art recycling facility can clean, sort, shred and reconstitute textile waste to be spun into new yarn; giving a second life to discarded textiles that would otherwise end up in Australian landfill.

Waterless laundering
Higher fibre yield
No bleaching or dyeing
Mechanical sorting
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Collect

Textile waste is collected from people and businesses around Australia. We’re currently well on our way to amassing the 100kg we need to begin production

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Shred

Collected waste is sent to Hong Kong recycling plant for processing, where it is Ozone laundered, mechanically sorted and shredded.

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Spin

Shredded waste is combined with complementary fibres and spun into various weights of yarn. This happens at a separate facility in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, China

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Create

Resulting yarn is sold as is or knitted into new products, designed by us and comprising our commercial line of recycled knitwear & knitted homewares.

‘Fibre First’ design

Rather than bleaching or re–dyeing anything, waste items are mechanically sorted into various colour combinations before shredding. This results in a beautiful Mélange yarn, coloured by all the different waste items that were combined to create it.

An absolute necessity

Advancing our capacity to recycle textiles is crucial if we hope to shift society away from its current reliance on landfill.

Garment production doubled between 2000 to 2014; exceeding 100 billion garments in 2014
Industry estimates that every 1kg of new fabric produces 23kg of greenhouse gases
A single t-shirt requires 2,720 litres of water to produce, while a pair of jeans requires 10,850
Apparel and footwear consumption is projected to reach 102 million tons by 2030
An estimated 85% of Australian textile waste ends up in landfill every year
In 2017 Australians disposed of 6,000kg of textile waste every 10 minutes

This unsustainable reliance on landfill is pushing Australians down a dangerous path towards environmental degradation.

With global consumption of apparel and footwear estimated to increase by 63% in the coming decade, intervention at both ends of the product lifecycle is more necessary than ever. This includes better, more environmentally conscientious production practices and the development of more comprehensive civic and industrial systems to recycle waste. Which is where we come in.

Follow the link to see what kind of textile waste we’re currently collecting

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