This website aims to offer the possibility to share and find information about both production waste and consumer waste (in big volumes) which could be used as a new resource for production. Although the creation of this database was started with mapping textile waste (as part of the platform Trash to Trend) it would have much more effective outcome if the database will grow and cover other industry sectors as well. Therefore, any kind of waste is welcome to be described here that do not yet have a good recycling solution.
Our bigger ambition is to find solutions for major problems in material recycling and upcycling and offer support and information to companies on their way to more sustainable production. For example sorting, cleaning and other type of pre-processing tend to be a strong barrier as well at the lack of ideas for reuse. It is our aim to bring together specialists of different fields of expertise to find new solutions for material upcycling rather than downcycling.
Since the introduction of fast fashion in the beginning of 90’s fashion industry has changed drastically. It became most important to find the cheapest fabric, the simplest cut and the cheapest producer. This kind of attitude has caused several problems in each step of the production cycle incl.
• extensive environmental issues due to the use of chemicals both in cotton harvesting and processing as well as in production of man-made fibres (present around 60% of all textile production)
• social problems (e.g. using child labor, remarkably low wages, inhumane working conditions etc.)
• ever growing volumes and speed of materials are related to growing energy consumption globally
• extensive increase of textile waste: post-consumer waste in developed countries and post-industrial waste in developing countries
In response to these trends, the ethical fashion started to take roots in 2000s to advocate the importance of environment and human rights. This has brought along fundamental changes in the whole value chains of the industry sector. At the same time prices of both raw material and human resources are going up (see the interview with Sashi Anad). This forces many companies to search for more sustainable solutions and find new competitive advantages. It also creates new opportunities to bring the fashion industry (production) back to Europe by implementing innovative business models and production methods. It gives a totally new meaning for circulating materials - offering new business opportunities and creating new economic benefit for services that would not have been vital before.
When we look at the speed and the amplitude of the changes throughout the industry sector (and not only this one) we can say that this is not just a temporary trend which passes in few years. Eco-friendly and sustainable business is slowly but permanently becoming the natural way of doing things.
Among most companies it is usual to start making changes by finding better solutions to waste, to optimize work processes or to make technological improvements. But much bigger impact (both in respect of turnover and environmental influences) can be obtained by solving more fundamental issues, e.g. environmentally friendly product design considering whole product/process life-cycle and cooperation between companies/industries to create closed-loop cycles etc.
reuse.ee
