Textile Recyclers Australia (TRA) has partnered with the ARC Research Hub for Microrecycling of Battery and Consumer Wastes, hosted by the UNSW Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre, to help develop and commercialise innovative solutions to waste challenges.

The Microrecycling Hub is a five-year national program of cutting-edge research and development to boost resource recovery capability by creating new advanced and scalable manufacturing technologies, based on SMaRT’s MICROfactorie concept.

According to the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (Clothing textiles - DCCEEW), Australia is the second highest consumer of textiles per person in the world, after the United States of America. Each Australian consumes an average of 27 kilograms of new clothing per year and disposes an average 23 kilograms of clothing to landfill each year, representing 93 percent of the textile waste generated.

While second-hand clothing shops as well as charity and social enterprise retailers do help decrease textile waste to landfill, more action is needed to reduce the approximately 800,000 tonnes of textiles that end up in Australian landfills each year.

Commenting on the latest partner to join the Hub, UNSW SMaRT Centre director Professor Veena Sahajwalla says, “Led by co-founders Ben Kaminsky and Maureen Taylor, TRA looks for circular solutions for unwanted textiles to keep them out of landfill.”

“With TRA joining the Hub, the program will broaden and continue developing work on technologies and processes to reform hard to recycle wastes, like textiles, into new materials and products.”

TRA co-founder Kaminsky says: “TRA processes unwanted garments into recycled yarn for ‘new’ apparel, but we know through SMaRT and the work of others that waste textiles are a resource that can be reformed into new things and materials for other products.”

“The textile industry is the second largest polluter in the world. This requires multiple solutions for such a huge problem, and the ARC Microrecycling Hub is looking to advance SMaRT’s work in developing new solutions and we are excited to be part of that journey.”

The Hub is a collaboration with numerous industry partners and researchers from six other universities around Australia including University of Technology, Sydney; University of Sydney; Monash University; University of Wollongong; Queensland University of Technology; and Deakin University.

Image: TRA co-founders Maureen Taylor and Ben Kaminsky

Branko Miletic

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