Textiles workshop informs CEBIC 2021-2022 focus area plans
Reducing waste and the barriers to achieving circularity in the textiles industry were key topics discussed at a recent workshop hosted by CEBIC to inform planning and delivery of our 2021-22 focus area.
More than 30 stakeholders from small and large retailers, manufacturers, recyclers, peak bodies, research institutions, consulting firms and government took part in our ‘Progressing Circular Textiles Opportunities’ industry consultation workshop.
The group identified the next steps towards greater circularity in the textiles sector. The key challenges and opportunities discussed included:
- Opportunities to reduce textile waste: including education and circular skills development for executive decision-makers, and fashion, design and fabrication students and professionals.
- Opportunities to expand reuse and repair: such as leveraging the strong network of charitable recyclers and supporting skills development for repair.
- Opportunities for greater collaboration: between researchers, manufacturers and designers to leverage Victoria’s strong research capability.
- Barriers to circularity: including limited options for onshore textiles recycling, lack of local fibre spinning capability, limited data on textiles material flows and complexities in sustainable material selection.
- Opportunities to overcome barriers: including aggregation of waste streams for recycling, funding for infrastructure and demonstration projects and better incentives for full traceability of materials, design for end-of-life and accurate product labelling.
- Education and behaviour change campaign: to encourage and educate consumers in responsible purchasing, responsible product care and responsible product donation or disposal.
- Areas that could benefit from government support: including facilitating greater networking and collaboration, supportive regulation, product stewardship schemes for textiles and government procurement.
The feedback provided in the workshop will help inform planning and delivery of the CEBIC year 2 focus area – Textiles. This includes planning of grant funding, collaborative events, partnerships and information sharing.
For more information on what was discussed, read the workshop overview [PDF, 215 kB].
CEBIC is committed to supporting co-ordinated action to progress a circular economy for textiles, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate with industry, research organisations and the community.
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