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Piles of discarded uniforms are being sorted in a warehouse in Sydney’s northwest. They were collected by a small business with a big goal: to reduce the amount of fabric sent to landfill, as volunteer Lily Watt explains.
“My job today was to sort the clothes into colors, so whites and colors. I am very passionate about not contributing to landfill and recycling is very important, you know the environment is important – it has a place in my heart.
Lily lives in the area and finished high school last year. He was happy to find an outlet for his old, unwanted uniforms.
“Being the youngest child, I didn’t know what to do with my uniforms when I left school, because my older brothers just gave them to me. But then I discovered this process and donated my uniforms.”
Lily’s uniforms are among thousands received from a small family business, called Worn Up. His goal is to turn fabric into furniture!
And with 9,000 schools in Australia, there’s a huge resource out there, according to co-founder Murray Fuller.
“We went to some schools, usually big ones, and sometimes they dumped 1.1 tons of clothes on us after a year. So it’s very disappointing how much waste there is.”
Across the country, co-founder Annie Thompson says the mountain of disused school clothing continues to grow.
“The volumes are extraordinary. There are over 4 million students in Australia who wear uniforms. Each of them wears 10 kilos of uniforms, say over a period of 12-24 months. The schools want this problem solved!”
It is estimated that Australian schools send around 2,000 tonnes of uniforms to landfill every year. And this is only part of the problem. Australia produces and imports 1.4 billion items of clothing a year – that’s more than 370,000 tonnes. Mrs. Thompson explains.
“Textile waste is a huge problem. Most end up in landfill. Only a quarter of textile waste is recycled because we don’t yet have the infrastructure in Australia. It’s really mind-blowing because there’s so much we can do with these materials.”
And that’s how Worn Up does it. Old uniforms are shredded and then mixed with other materials and pressed at high temperatures to form flat, colorful boards. Thompson says the boards can be shaped into table tops and other objects.
Clothing is notoriously difficult to recycle. We like uniforms because it’s a predictable fiber and it’s mostly polyester and polyester is terrible, it sits in landfill for 100 years. So, we want to extract that value and the embodied energy that went into making them and turn them into something useful.”
Ms Thompson is in her second year of a master’s degree in sustainable development and says Worn Up grew out of a previous sustainable school clothing initiative.
“We have worked with 195 schools nationwide. People were sending their uniforms from Tasmania, they were so excited. And we worked with 13 municipalities who paid for those schools to send us their uniforms and be processed.”
Australia’s national science organization CSIRO has been part of this journey through its KickStart program. Director, Dr. Megan [[MEE-gan]]Sebben explains.
“We started working with Annie and the Worn Up team around 2022. They contacted us asking us to apply to the Kickstart program and connect with CSIRO researchers. Then, the CSIRO Kickstart project looked to test the product to see how strong and then we also looked at areas where we could improve, for example the strength or also other aspects of the material.”
In the Worn Up showroom there is a wide range of prototypes: from tables to chairs, worktops and even cutting boards repurposed with colorful fabrics. For now, though, Thompson says, as production ramps up, they’ve stopped collecting from schools and are focusing instead on company uniforms.
“We really need funding to become commercially scalable and move forward. We think there are great opportunities for us in commercial furniture. It is made in Australia. We hope to work with some of the larger commercial manufacturers.”
In reality, discarded uniforms are only part of the growing clothing waste problem. According to the Australia Institute, the average Australian buys around 56 new items each year, and more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing – many of which contain synthetic components – ends up in landfill. It’s one of the reasons why the CSIRO says turning fabrics into furniture is a better option. Dr. Sebben explains:
“The product is really innovative and addresses a pretty serious problem we have in terms of sustainability and circular economy that isn’t often talked about compared to other plastics and pollutants. CSIRO is truly committed to an initiative to end plastic waste. So, we identified this as a very serious global challenge. So, for us, partnering with companies like Worn Up is a really good opportunity to start addressing this problem in many different ways, including industrial applications to put an end to this huge problem that we have.”
And while recycling is welcomed by many environmental organisations, including Planet Ark, its circular economy development manager, Dr Nicole Garofano, says more needs to be done.
“Initiatives like Worn Up are fantastic for keeping materials in use, but what can we as individuals do? 1.4 billion new items of clothing are produced or imported into Australia every year, the majority of which are made from unsustainable and non-durable materials. Every year in Australia 200,000 tonnes of clothing – that is, clothing and not textiles – is thrown into landfill. So while we recycle, which is what these initiatives are a wonderful reuse of precious materials, what should we actually do? In fact, we must reduce the consumption of materials and in this case of textiles.”
Many recycled products are part of Australia’s circular economy. Co-founder Annie Thompson hopes FABtec can do even more, one day helping to alleviate the growing global burden of textile waste.
“We would really like to see Fabtech go global. We are the first Australian made product globally and it would be great for us to see it become the norm everywhere. We recently had an exhibition at the Design Expo in Sydney and had an overwhelming response from interior designers, architects and industrial designers. And we have received some orders from this. We are on the road to commercialization. Ultimately, can you imagine if all 4 million Australian students sat at a desk made from their uniforms?