“Diverse partners have come together to create a circular system to reuse the untapped resource of unwanted clothing and textiles, onshore in Aotearoa. Textile waste is one of New Zealand’s fastest growing waste streams, their outsized impact…“

“New Zealand’s fashion and textile industry is taking a significant step forward, addressing climate change and improving how clothes are brought to market and managed at end-of-use, by implementing a Textile Product Stewardship Scheme co-designed by the industry…..”

“The founding members of UsedFULLY’s newly established Advisory Board are high-profile local and international experts in sustainable business, reflecting both the growing global awareness of the need to address the environmental impacts of the textile industry and the track record the UsedFULLY team has built in this area over the past decade…..”

“We know these figures thanks to open- source research from organisations like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and WRAP UK. The difficulty arises when trying to understand the local picture. It has been 12 years since the Ministry for the Environment’s last comprehensive waste audit, which estimated total textiles at 4% of landfill. In that time global clothing production has almost doubled....”

“There is no sugar coating the seismic disruption the pandemic has created for the clothing industry. New Zealand, small and remote, is in a unique position to build a better clothing system and our strengths lie in the very reasons why we have been overlooked by big fast fashion brands until just fairly recently...”

“The word ‘fashion’ can evoke an elite clique of creatives to which ordinary clothes wearing people like you and me can feel excluded. But unless you are reading this in the nudey, and all power to you if you are, your clothes wearing self is part of the global clothing system..”

“Fashion Fluid” panel discussion hosted by Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Otago Polytechnic School of Fashion and chaired by Simon Swale from Otago Polytech included industry professionals, academics and fashion educators: Donna Dinsdale, Emily Miller-Sharma, Murray Bevan Sue Prescott and our founder Bernadette Casey. Discussions such as this provide rich cross sector knowledge for all fashion stakeholders.

“The clothing and textile sector has a considerable part to play in the transition to a low carbon future. Over 100 billion garments are produced every year with only a fraction recycled. Textile production creates about 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2e per year …“

“Climate change, and carbon emissions are a global challenge, and we are a global industry. So what does this mean for businesses in/or interacting with the textile industry? …“

“Framing social and environmental problems as individual diverts us from any real critique of the system. What once was the role of government and public sector, protection of citizens and the environment, has been handed to the private sector. Buying fair trade commodities will not save the biosphere. We need to radically reduce our consumption…”

Image: Neil O’Styke

“Circularity is being touted as the next evolution of the fashion system. The model, if successfully implemented, could radically reduce the draw on virgin resources, reduce carbon impacts, eliminate waste and extract considerably higher value from clothing. To transition from the current linear model to a circular one requires the alignment of multiple factors, from up-stream processing capability, logistics, technology and capital…”