After a fashion: how to cut down our clothing waste

EXPLAINER

They don’t belong in your recycling bin. They may be too far gone for the second-hand shop. So where do your old threads end up when you ditch them? And why is textile recycling trendy? Melissa Singer reports.

Even before the Marie Kondo phenomenon or The Chaser’s War on Waste that turned spring cleaning into a competitive sport, Australians have been steadily contributing to a discarded textiles crisis.

While some of our unwanted clothing can be donated, sold or gifted, much of it, including underwear and activewear, cannot find a second life in its current form.

Now industry and activists are slowly coming together to address what they call ‘‘textile circularity’’, one of the biggest unresolved issues in the sustainable fashion equation.

WHAT IS TEXTILE CIRCULARITY?

Some textiles, such as cotton and linen, are made of natural fibres and, if discarded, will decompose over several months in landfill. But synthetic materials, such as polyester, could take hundreds of years to break down, according to scientists.

Textile circularity is a concept used to describe the return of materials in clothes, bed linen and towels, among other things, to a system where they will be given a ‘‘second life’’ and ideally more lives beyond that. This second life could be back in the textile manufacturing chain or in other industries that can use the byproducts of recycling, which include cellulose powder (from cotton).

The term textile circularity is related to a ‘‘circular economy’’: instead of constantly making and ditching stuff, we find ways to continually use it, even if it is radically transformed along the way, so it doesn’t end up as waste. As the concept implies, whoever brings this ‘‘stuff’’ into the world also shoulders the burden of shepherding it away from the waste heap down the track.

Textile circularity would see companies and governments at all levels share responsibility with the consumer for ensuring that there is a safe, affordable and convenient way for textiles to be returned to industry when they’ve worn out or you no longer want them.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? HOW BIG IS IT?

Australian households disposed of 169,000 tonnes of textiles in 2016-17 according to the most recent figures available from the Bureau of Statistics. This equates to about seven kilograms per person based on population. With the growth in ‘‘fast fashion’’ – cheap, trendy and with a short lifespan in terms of appeal and quality – it’s possible the figure today is even higher.

When you add the fashion industry to the equation, Australians got rid of a total of about 487,000 tonnes of threads in 2016-17. Where did it go? Well, about 406,000 tonnes ended up in landfill. That’s a lot of cloth buried in the ground, a lot of it not decomposing. Much of this landfill could be avoided with better disposal, including donating saleable (that is, no stains, rips or holes) goods to charity.

But fashion businesses could be taking some of the load too. Even companies making clothes that meet many ethical and sustainable benchmarks are still leaving it up to the consumer to take responsibility for the correct disposal of a garment.

WHY NOT PUT CLOTHES IN THE RECYCLING BIN?

Because, unlike glass or cardboard, it’s not actually dealt with by recyclers. In fact, it’s a hazard to them – fabrics get caught in sorting machines at recycling facilities. According to the City of Sydney, about 7 per cent of kerbside rubbish collected is textile waste. ‘‘Some of this increase can be attributed to the rise of fast fashion,’’ notes lord mayor Clover Moore. The council is aiming to launch a call-andcollect scheme for textile recycling by next year.

WHERE DO CLOTHES GO TO BE ‘RECYCLED’ NOW?

Most textiles collected for recycling are sent offshore for processing. But the percentage of textiles globally that are sent for recycling is minuscule as the industry is still quite new.

This year a body called the Australian Circular Textile Association (ACTA) was set up to bring together industry, recycling operators and environmental groups to create a viable domestic textile recycling industry.

One of the reasons the association is working hard for a better textile recycling system is that most textiles that are collected are sent for sorting in Asia, then often elsewhere for recycling or upcycling (actually improving a garment to give it another life). Sometimes textiles are sent to be incinerated for biofuel, and a small amount may be sent to landfill if they cannot be repurposed.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO WITH OLD CLOTHES?

If you are not fortunate enough to have a textile recycling bin at your doorstep, there are still things you can do. Some retailers, including H&M, Zara and UNIQLO, offer textile recycling bins in their stores where people can deposit any textiles, not just clothing from that brand, to be sent for recycling offshore.

Xin-Yi Wong, H&M’s south-east Asia sustainability manager, says the fast-fashion retailer has collected about 400,000 kilograms of textiles since it launched in Australia in 2014. H&M sends the textiles to Germanbased sorting company i-Collect, which sorts according to quality. Wong says 50 to 60 per cent is reworked or reused, including being sold on the secondhand market, while about 35 to 45 per cent is recycled. ‘‘When it comes to the collection initiative, there is about 3 to 7 per cent where the quality is not good enough for reuse and recycling and those are used as combustibles for energy,’’ Wong says.

Retailer General Pants last week launched its own ‘‘denim amnesty’’ take-back system for unwanted denim, which will separate usable pieces of denim to be made into other products, such as shopping bags, from the unusable portion that will be recycled to make products including carpet underlay, insulation and fertiliser.

Donating clothes to not-for-profits is a good idea but if you wouldn’t buy an article of clothing yourself, best not dump it on a charity. They will have to dispose of the moth-eaten, laddered or worn-out item at their expense.

The National Association of Charitable Recycling Organisations’ chief executive, Omer Soker, told The Sun-Herald in March that charities spent $13 million each year disposing of unusable donations. In some states, you can also donate old sheets and towels to animal hospitals and shelters.

HOW MANY OLD CLOTHES GO INTO NEW TEXTILES?

Currently, not many. Textile-to-textile recycling can be done in small quantities but the technology and cost are not yet viable on an industrial scale. One reason is that when cotton is recycled, for example, the fibres are drastically shortened, meaning the yarn is weaker and more prone to failure.

‘‘We still haven’t found the sweet spot to justify the cost [of recycling textiles into new clothes] and make it competitive and palatable,’’ says ACTA’s Camille Reed.

But just as people have become used to carrying bags to the supermarket or even wearing bikinis made from recycled fishing nets, recycled clothing will eventually become mainstream.

In their annual sustainability report, fashion industry analysts Edited found the number of products described as ‘‘recycled’’ had almost tripled (up 173 per cent) in the past 12 months. Makers of denim jeans are among those making the greatest progress in using a portion of recycled denim in new styles, and making a marketing virtue of it. Dutchbased MUD Denim is making jeans with 40 per cent post-consumer recycled denim. Designer Rebecca Vallance has started using recycled polyester, while Bonds’ Reloved range includes track pants made from a blend of recycled and virgin cotton.

A company called BlockTexx has developed technology to separate and recycle polyester and cotton, a blend found in everyday clothing, into many products that traditionally would have been made from brand-new plastic, such as food storage containers.

Ironically, some of the least recycled and repurposed textiles are in things we use for self-improvement such as swimwear and exercise gear (not to mention the ‘‘ick’’ factor of finding a new home for your old leggings), which is one reason BlockTexx has focused its efforts on poly-cotton blends. The cellulose powder derived from their process could be used by the food industry as thickener, say co-founders Graham Ross and Adrian Jones, to make building materials such as paints and adhesives or by the beauty and health industries.

Ross says governments and wastemanagement authorities need to start tracking textile disposals in the same way as other materials such as plastics and glass to establish a full picture of the problem. ‘‘Australia has the opportunity to be a world leader [in textile recycling],’’ he said. ‘‘We have the resources – we have 800,000 tonnes [of textiles] going into landfill [each year].’’

WHAT DO FASHION LABELS DO WITH UNSOLD CLOTHES?

Often they are simply incinerated. The French government is working on laws to ban the destruction of unsold fashion after revelations that many companies were burning excess stock.

Swedish chain H&M last year revealed it was sitting on a garbage pile of $US4 billion ($5.9 billion) in unsold clothes, while luxury brand Burberry has begun trying to control its inventory after burning more than $150 million in stock over the past seven years. One reason that fashion brands have destroyed excess stock is to maintain their prestige by not flooding the market or having to discount styles at the end of a season (in the past, companies have also been able to write off these losses for tax purposes, depending on the country in which they are based).

For a glimpse of what’s possible, Singapore and Japan have developed textile recycling technology, while Britain has a number of re-purposing options available to the general public.

ACTA is working to find a solution that will reduce the proportion of textiles households send to landfill, which currently sits at about 85 per cent. Reed said that by 2024 ACTA hopes to oversee 350,000 tonnes of textile recycling, with only 10 per cent of polyester going to landfill. By 2030, it hopes to steer the capture of 95 per cent of all textiles for recycling and reprocessing. To build a successful system, it would need support not only from the clothing industry but from the industrial sector, including uniform suppliers, hospitals and hotels – basically, any business that uses textiles in bulk.

The Salvation Army’s new Moving the Needle campaign aims to foster dialogue among consumers and retailers to improve circularity, including by donating garments to charity. The Salvos are also in talks with recycling advocates about how they can be part of the solution, since the charity sector is such a massive repository of textiles that are suitable for recycling.

WHAT COULD THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE?

Ross and Jones hope that by 2020 they will open the first large-scale BlockTexx plant, somewhere in regional Australia, that can process 10,000 tonnes a year. The idea is to replicate this around the country. Clothes may also one day end up in insulation and padding for the building industry, or in sound absorption products in the automotive industry.

The other tranche of effective textile recycling will be increasing the ‘‘takeback’’ capacity of clothing brands and other providers, such as petrol stations, to act as collection points. Ultimately there’s hope that councils will find a way to offer textile recycling in addition to other forms of waste disposal.

WHO PAYS FOR ALL THIS?

Ross and Jones say it will cost businesses about the same to use their process as it does to dump textiles into landfill. So basically a no-brainer.

But just as car owners accept that their mechanic charges them a fee to responsibly dispose of old oil or tyres, so too must consumers acknowledge there is a cost involved in disposing of textiles thoughtfully, Jones says. ‘‘We’re [fashion] not a ‘clean’ industry so we need people to address the cost of their consumption,’’ he said. ‘‘If people understand there’s a cost to a problem, they will start to think of solutions.’’

with Nicole Economos