For David Pendleton, there is no better sound than the hum of a sewing machine.
Over the past five years, he has produced thousands of recycled wool blankets, picnic rugs and pet pillows from his little workshop in Yackandandah, in north-east Victoria.
Mr Pendleton and his partner Jane now sell their recycled wool products – along with homegrown produce and award-winning extra virgin olive oil – at farmers’ markets.
Mr Pendleton says he stumbled into the world of textiles after leaving a corporate career.
“I was working on a major project for an international charity which aimed to minimise sexual abuse of women in south-east Asian sweatshops,” he said.
“The fabrics were completely separate from what I was working on, but when I came across recycled textiles I just wanted to learn more.”
Michell Wool executive director David Michell says textiles have been getting recycled for many years.
“It’s been happening for generations in Europe,” Mr Michell said.
He said after World War II that “there were trainloads of rags and old jumpers heading to Prato in the centre of Italy to be recycled”.
Take, make, dispose
But Australia has a big problem when it comes to unwanted clothing and fabrics.
Ainsley Simpson is the chief executive of Seamless, a government-initiated clothing recycling scheme that is aiming, according to its website, “to create clothing circularity” in Australia by 2030.
“Here in Australia more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing go to landfill each year,” she said.
“That’s because our current mindset around clothing is ‘we take, we make and we dispose.'”
Ms Simpson says Australia lacks an effective textile recycling system.
“We’ve got some excellent commercial textile recycling initiatives like Textile Recycling Australia and Samsara Eco,” she said.
“But currently we have no national, systematic way for Australians to responsibly recycle their clothes.”
That is why Mr Pendleton sources recycled fabric from India.
“Whilst we have great woollen mills and fabric manufacturers in Australia, we just don’t produce these sorts of materials in the volumes that we used to, and rely on other markets to produce them,” he said.
But Mr Michell said recycled textiles came with a financial and environmental price tag.
“The minute you put it into a container and ship it around the world, you’re starting to put carbon miles on everything,” he said.
“If you’re not careful, recycled fibres can very quickly become more expensive than new ones.”
‘Increasingly willing’
Ms Simpson said there was commercial demand for recycled textiles in Australia.
“From our conversations with our major clothing brands, they are increasingly willing to adopt recycled textiles in their designs,” she said.
“But we need the technology and infrastructure to deliver volumes of clothing to recyclers and then make them widely available to retailers.”
Ms Simpson says when Seamless starts operating on July 1, it will focus on creating a national and economically viable textile recycling system.
It aims to significantly reduce the amount of clothing that goes to landfill each year and achieve circularity by 2030.
In the meantime, Mr Pendleton says he is starting the conversation in his community.
“I’ve been talking with my local council to set up a textile recycling system here in Indigo Shire so I can receive people’s old clothes and shred them down to use in my products,” he said.
“I know it’s easy to get caught up in a lot of the big problems we face as a society … but here at our tiny little business in Yackandandah, we’re going to keep using recycled fabrics and people seem to really appreciate that.”
