Textiles Action Plan for Sydney
In 2020- 2021, Sydney ROCs and their member councils collaborated on a Textiles Action Plan for Sydney councils which outlines focus areas and targets to work towards to reduce textile waste in council operations and community services.
SSROC is continuing to work on textiles initiatives with Sydney councils, ROCs and the NSW EPA including:
- Improving data on textiles collected in council managed collections as well as improving the categorisation of textiles in SSROC’s regional waste audits of kerbside bins.
- SSROC’s 2023 Regional Waste Audit shows that textiles are 4.6% of the average household general waste bin, of that 14% is wearable clothing that could have been reused. Textiles continues to be one of the top contaminants in the recycling bin. SSROC 2023 Regional Bulky Waste Audit also showed that textiles are 6.7% of household clean up collection piles, this is mostly clothing (4.5%) and carpet/rugs (2.2%).
- SSROC coordinated a 14 month Uniform Recycling Trial on behalf of eight Sydney councils. The objective of this project is to determine the costs, logistics, barriers and benefits of recycling council uniforms and the potential volumes of uniforms each council could recover. The trial recovered over 2600kgs of uniforms and had many benefits which are captured in this case study.
- Proving input into Seamless the product stewardship scheme for clothing. SSROC also continues to advocate to the EPA and other key stakeholders for forward-thinking policies, product stewardship, and takeback schemes to reduce the impact of textile waste.
