A national textile collection program would help overcome confusion around clothes recycling, uncovered in a recent study.
In the first nationwide study into how Australians use and dispose of clothing, RMIT University researchers found people were buying too many clothes and were unsure how to discard them responsibly.
Lead author Professor Alice Payne said establishing a national textile collection program for unwearable clothing that could be recycled would prevent items being unnecessarily sent to landfill.
Professor Payne said Australians were among the world’s biggest clothing consumers, importing 1.4 billion units, or over 383,000 tonnes annually, with more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing sent to landfill each year.
She said the study showed that across all findings, age was the most significant factor in determining consumer clothing practices, surpassing gender, income bracket and location.
“Young Australians, aged 18–34, were more likely to buy second-hand, repair, resell or share clothes, but tended to have large collections of unused clothing that were no longer in style.
“Older Australians were more likely to donate clothing they no longer wanted, though were less likely to buy second-hand.”
Professor Payne said although Australians bought too many clothes, there were some things they did well.
“Compared to European data, Australians are better at shopping second-hand and washing clothes responsibly,” she said.
Professor Payne said most Australians donated unwanted, but otherwise good clothes, with 87 percent of consumers indicating they donated unwanted clothing to charity.
She said the findings also showed consumers were confused about where and how to responsibly discard clothing that could no longer be worn.
“Fifty-one per cent throw away worn-out or significantly damaged clothes in the general waste bin and 30 percent in the household recycle bin at least half of the time.”
Professor Payne said consumers needed more durable products and a national textile recycling scheme, which were the key recommendations in the report.
