Powering innovative solutions to reduce textiles waste in Victoria

Sustainability Victoria’s Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre (CEBIC) has announced more than $630,000 in funding to enable five projects that will create more jobs in Victoria and avoid more than 600 tonnes of waste per year.

Enabling textiles innovation

In Victoria, only 7 percent of textile waste is recycled each year.

Four of the funded projects aim to change this by exploring innovative circular practices and business models that design out waste.

Projects to receive funding through the textile innovation stream will include:

• A project led by Deakin University that will explore the development of bio-based fabric and its potential to be a replacement for polyester in clothing manufacturing

• A project led by Australian fashion label A.BCH, that will build and test a digital platform to connect the oversupply of textile materials with demand via a marketplace
• Outdoor clothing manufacturer Kathmandu will lead a project to explore renewal and resale of damaged or unwanted clothing
• A University of Melbourne-led project will explore ways to safely reuse disposable hospital gowns.

Learnings from these projects will be shared with the broader community to stimulate further innovation in the circular economy.

The funding aligns with CEBIC’s Year 2 Focus area of textiles. In addition to the fund, CEBIC is supports the textiles industry through the development of resources and events that bring together industry stakeholders and encourage information sharing.

Reducing construction waste through prefabrication

CLOS Laminated Offsite Solutions received funding through stream two of the fund, that they will to demonstrate the potential for prefabrication to reduce waste, cost and time in Victorian housing construction.

International research has shown that using a prefab, off-site building process can reduce construction waste by 50%.

However, there is no demonstration, data, or study on the waste reduction potential of prefab for multi-residential projects in Victoria. This project will deliver a waste reduction case study to share with the wider industry.

About the Innovation Fund

Action 1.1 of the policy is to deliver CEBIC, which fosters business innovation and collaboration across supply chains to reduce waste, increase reuse and generate new streams of revenue for businesses.

The Recycling Victoria Innovation Fund is part of the Victorian Government’s Recycling Victoria policy whose targets include reducing total waste generation by 15% per capita by 2030.

This Fund is part of the CEBIC program.

For the full list of funded projects see Recycling Victoria Innovation Fund – Funded projects.