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.
- Coordinating a 12 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.
- Proving input into the developing product stewardship scheme for clothing coordinated by the Australian Fashion Council.
Building on the Textiles Recovery Action Plan for Sydney councils, SSROC in partnership with other Sydney sought information from organisations participating in this sector, such as charities, commercial used clothing collectors, clothing recyclers and re-processers, fashion brands offering takeback schemes in Sydney, and research organisations. This will help councils to understand and share with the community information about the quality needed for clothing donations and understand what recycling and reprocessing opportunities there are for used textiles in Sydney.
SSROC 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.
