CIRCULARITY #3 WORKSHOP

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TUESDAY 7TH + THURSDAY 9th JUNE 2022 

Times both days. START 9.30am to 2.30pm

Online only. Purchase Tickets below

In August 2020 Circular Centre's Director Alison Jose was invited to speak at the Australian government's House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources to discuss the topic "Australia's waste management and recycling industries" chaired by Barnaby Joyce MP.

Mr Joyce asked: "If you had the chance to drive policy, if you had the capacity to be the boss in Canberra or Macquarie Street, what do you think is the fundamental policy requirement needed to step up our recycling efforts and assist an organisation or company such as yours?  

Ms Jose : I think it comes down to individual councils and for them to have an awareness and capability to pick this up.

What I was referring to in my comment, and as i said earlier in my presentation to Federal parliament, is that to increase support for councils via federal and state funding because they have the strongest capability to divert and tackle clothing waste.  

This is because councils are customer facing, they have the ability to partner with textile resource recovery systems to divert directly from houses and red bins which will assist ease and compliance.  Councils also have the greatest ability to educate residents and communities with engaging educational opportunities.  We see this as the backbone for supporting the diversion of "unwearables and unusables".

One-on-one and/or team Consultations are available after the Workshop to help develop circular solutions and assist with government grant applications.

The Circular Centre's workshop offers organisations the ability to create and connect to existing resource recovery solutions for "unwearable and unusable" garments and textiles plus link to providers and share insights into new innovations to come.    

We deliver step-by-step solutions to help facilitate local networks to create circular textile waste systems, data collection, links to a smart tech solutions to increase efficiency, collection strategies and transport logistics, existing and upcoming circular steams for remanufacturing and unique circular economy innovations for "waste" garments and commercial textiles.   

We introduce the adetex Smart Materials Passport via RFiD Threads.  

"Adetex and their technology on RFID yarns and the appropriate software to go with it is a game changer in enabling a circular economy. The RFID yarn is put into the garment during manufacture and then all of the details of the garments construction and fibre type can be entered into the Adetex database. 

This information is then scannable by a wholesaler, retailer, customer and end of life recycler,"  writes Christopher Hurren, Senior Research Fellow (Fibre Science and Technology), Institute for Frontier Materials, GTP Research, Deakin University.  

Plus share human centred design systems and training to help develop job opportunities especially for disability and social enterprises.  

Alison Jose Director of the Circular Centre and Project Manager Ginia Chu will share the step-by-step process to set up a Circular Textile Waste Service (CTWS) including 

• a case study of our Mosman Council's Circular Textile Waste Service pilot; a residential pick-up service that took all garment and textile types except feathers. . 
• Plus the Virgin Australia uniforms + workwear service, 
• General Pants Co. + Circular Denim Redesign Competition
• and AFI Branding and Coritex circular bulk commercial textile service that first diverted 80+ tonnes of bulk soft signage commercial textiles.  

These project were funded through the NSW Environment Protection Authority Waste Less Recycle More Circulate initiative funded from the Waste Levy.  

Delivered by Alison Jose, Director of the Circular Centre and STSC. Sustainable Textile Supply Chain and 

Ginia Chu, Project Manager and Fabric Developer for the Circular Centre. 

Special guest speakers Lucy Tomassini Projects and Partnerships Manager at LOOP UPCYCLING 

and and Julian Lowe, National Sales and Business Development Manager of Coritex on our existing bulk soft signage circular solution. 

Councils and many disability and social enterprises plus charities, SMEs and community groups each have substantial existing infrastructure and staff that with systems adjustments can combine to provide circular economy solutions for clothing and textile waste to divert from the red bin and landfill.

The Circular Centre's two half-day workshops is to educate stakeholders on existing and upcoming solutions to divert "unwearable and unusable" garments and textiles and solutions to re-direct via circular streams that will reuse, repair, recycle, redesign and lastly repurpose via remanufacturing solutions that then become their own new circular loops.  

Learn insights into the 8 month R&D process as we designed the service to work with disability and social enterprise teams.  We share how this can be replicated nationwide plus plug into existing systems to process through local circular streams and support Australian jobs, manufacturing, innovation and smart tech connecting to human centered design.  

Learn from existing uniform and workwear solution providers LOOP UPCYCLING with special guest presentation by the Projects and Partnerships Manager Lucy Tomassini. 

Founded in 2017, LOOP is a WA Social Enterprise and Australia's first upcycling company. LOOP was created to minimise waste and create meaningful employment a for thosne most at risk and in need in our communities.  

LOOP works with companies to develop unique and innovative programs to deal with redundant uniforms - diverting them from landfills and upcycling them into new products, giving them a second life. The Circular Centre is working to collaborate with LOOP to divert textile waste from their waste streams.

Plus Julian Lowe, National Sales and Business Development Manager at Coritex and their new circular bulk textile service. 

We go in-depth into the structure, set-up and data collection plus introductions to a variety of circular waste streams and various tools for Smart Materials Passport solutions for every garment (existing and in future), collection solutions and suggestions, plus offer links to  how to keep waste, jobs, remanufacturing and innovation local.  

The Workshop is a step-by-step facilitated event to assist participants to draw on various strategies and existing solutions and create their own localised resource recovery scheme to link to available solutions plus develop new circular streams and partnerships.  

SUPERVISOR AND TEAM TRAINING 

The final session is for charities and communities looking to develop their own circular textile waste service with or without links to the Circular Centre.

VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT GRANT APPLICANTS

The Workshops are also be tailored to help develop systems to help those looking to apply for the Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre (CEBIC), second round of the Recycling Victoria Business Support Fund, on behalf of the Victorian Government. 

Note this is not an official Victorian Government workshop, this is to help organisations to develop systems as stand-alone services.  This workshop may assist those who are applying for these grants with or without a partnership with the Circular Centre.  This is an independent Workshop to assist with grant applications and we are not connected to the government selection process nor can assure any applicant's success.

We welcome the opportunity to work with you following the Workshop via our Circular design consultancy service.

The grants that may be applicable are:

Stream 1: Develop a Circular economy Business case 

Stream 2: Implement a Circular economy Business case. 

Grant applications close Thursday 7 July 2022

The workshop includes "how-to":

• set up a circular system for residential and community textile waste, company uniforms and workwear, bulk commercial waste, soft signage etc.
• collection, take-back, drop-off options
• scalable local approach
• collection of verifiable data, collect emission mitigation data
• smart tech solutions including smart thread and smart tape 
• create a circular movement; socialise the circular concept & build systems people want
• sorting criteria and valorising (garment types, fibre types, quality types) 
• using Circular Centre's existing and future circular streams
• integrating your local circular streams eg repair, resell
• working with disability and social enterprises 
• staff training (see below)
• human centered design combined with smart tech solutions
• community and commercial compost solutions
• procurement and resell
• cost efficiency, funding, rebates.

Communication tools; how to educate residents and communities to help pre-sort waste and connect with the people behind the service, consider consumption, encourage and inspire reuse and repair, understand the systems change and costs associated both financially, personally and environmentally.  How participation no matter how small fosters positivity and inclusion.