The project combines textile collection and recovery processes operated by Salvos Stores with Deakin University’s research and pilot-scale manufacturing equipment.
Australian government figures cited by the partners show that each person in Australia sends an average of 23kg of clothing to landfill each year.
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In a statement, Deakin said garments that are damaged, worn or otherwise unsuitable for resale can contain materials that are currently removed from the textile supply chain.
The new project, funded through the Australian government’s Trailblazer Universities Programme, will support recovery operations at Salvos Stores’ Textile Recovery Facility in Queensland.
The facility sorts clothing by fibre type and colour and removes components, including buttons and zips, automatically to produce material streams for recycling.
Deakin Institute for Frontier Materials associate professor Chris Hurren said the research was focused on maintaining the length and quality of recycled fibres so they could potentially be used to make new clothing, rather than being downgraded into lower-value products, such as insulation or seat wadding.
“The biggest problem with recycling textiles is that you end up with a random mess of fibre types. With the Salvos technology, we’re able to get an individual fibre type, which means that we can then process that more efficiently and make better products from it,” he said.
The research will examine whether recovered fibres can retain sufficient length and quality for use in new clothing and other textile products. This differs from recycling routes that use fibres in lower-value applications such as insulation or seat wadding.
Salvos Stores business development manager and textile scientist Meriel Chamberlin said donations suitable for resale remained important, but the organisation was receiving more garments that could not return to shops.
“Those garments we collect still contain valuable textile materials, so the challenge is finding ways to recover them and turn them into new products. Our technology allows whole garments to be processed into fabric pieces ready for recycling, without the need for manual decommissioning. Better sorting, processing and technology allow more garments to stay in circulation and on the shop floor.”
Deakin’s Future Fibres Facility will process recycled materials through textile manufacturing stages and assess possible product applications.
The partners said they aim to create product demonstrations that can help manufacturers assess the use of recycled inputs.
Hurren said the facility gave companies access to equipment needed to investigate domestic textile manufacturing options.
“Australia’s textile manufacturing industry declined significantly in the 1990s following the removal of tariffs. Now, rising shipping costs, access to renewable energy, advances in automation and global supply chain disruptions have turned the tide and made onshore textile manufacturing attractive to business. Industry doesn’t have the specialised equipment that we have in our laboratory here. For them to explore whether onshoring is viable, they need to first put a toe in the water,’ Hurren added.
Meanwhile, Chamberlin said: “The capability to play at scale is critical to develop new markets and prove concepts that are going to be worth scaling to solve the textile waste problem here in Australia. If we can tackle secure decommissioning of uniforms, that opens up new opportunities for the textile recycling industry.”
