Turning T-shirts into roads
Usedfully is trying to tackle the country’s textile waste problem by finding ways to give old clothes new life, writes Brittney Deguara.
Peter Thompson and Bernadette Casey aren’t trying to reinvent the textile recycling wheel. They’re just trying to make it turn in Aotearoa.
Textile waste is spiralling out of control – annually around 220,000 tonnes enter landfill – but little is being done to curb it.
Enter Usedfully.
The low-carbon clothing system is bringing together fashion and textile brands to try to find a Kiwi-based solution to close the fashion loop.
For the time being, it isn’t actually possible to recycle textiles here, so the focus is on research and planning. The team is hopeful that within the next year, with Government support, a pilot plant will be erected to kickstart a recycling programme.
‘‘This is a massive low-hanging-fruit opportunity to really make a difference,’’ says chief executive and co-founder Thompson.
More than 200 brands across the fashion and textile industry are already aiding Usedfully’s cause. Big names such as Barkers, Max, Glassons, and Hallenstein Brothers are on board, as is Mindful Fashion, Alsco New Zealand and Deane Apparel.
‘‘We sell everything we make, but the reality is, once it goes to the consumer . . . I imagine a lot of it ends up in landfill,’’ says Max and Barkers’ managing director Jamie Whiting. ‘‘There is no solution here in New Zealand.’’
Usedfully’s ultimate goal is to provide the means to perform the whole recycling process onshore.
Launching a recycling programme, however, requires more than just a willingness to change. It takes money and an industry-level change.
Usedfully is lobbying the Government to co-invest in regional processing plants to allow the recycling process to remain onshore, instead of dumping it overseas.
Casey, Usedfully’s co-founder and creative director, is hopeful a pilot plant will be running within the next 12 months.
Erecting recycling plants – paired with consumers’ willingness to pay more for recycled garments – could pave the way for Kiwis to have partially or fully recycled wardrobes in the future. But recycled textiles have potential to be more than just more clothes.
Recycled textiles can be turned into furniture or housing insulation. A 100 per cent cotton shirt can even be turned into bitumen pellets.
Usedfully has already tested this option. Cellulose, which is typically imported from Germany, can be extracted from the shirt by shredding it, turning it into a fine powder, and blending it with bitumen to make pellets. This process can be repeated for polyester and polycotton products.
This recycling process has numerous environmental benefits. It will divert
textiles from landfill, reduce greenhouse gases that are emitted when clothes go in landfill – around three times their weight – and reduce the volume of microplastics entering waterways.
On a larger scale, it could remove the need for cellulose to be imported from Europe, eliminating the emissions attached to that process.
‘‘Win-win-win,’’ Thompson says.
The idea behind Usedfully isn’t unique – there’s no radical new technology or gamechanging breakthrough. But the company’s eagerness to enact systemic change is what makes it stand out to Jason Kibbey, chief executive of Higgs Co, a technology company that helps brands measure and improve the impact of their supply chains.
‘‘It’s the whole package,’’ says Kibbey, who has worked in the sustainable fashion industry for around 15 years and is a Usedfully board adviser. He says many companies are doing the same recycling work, but few are also lobbying the Government for industry-level change.
‘‘[It’s] innovative and interesting and . . . it’s bringing us together with a solution.’’
The textile industry is one of the biggest carbon emitters alongside oil, gas, and agriculture, and, in the past 15 years, global production has doubled to more than 100 billion units annually. Despite this, textile waste isn’t on the Government’s Waste Management Act priority list.
‘‘[The] Government hasn’t really understood the impact of textiles, and they’ve run under the radar for so long. It’s a really unregulated industry,’’ Casey says.
The lack of regulation leaves the onus on companies to do the right thing. Whiting hopes a few big brands pushing for change will encourage smaller players.
‘‘It often takes a few game changers to step up first.’’