EP53 - Rethinking Waste 2: Giving New Life to Old Textile with Michael Elias

Welcome to Episode 53 of the Sustainable Ecommerce Podcast!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep53

Today’s show is the second episode in our mini-series on rethinking waste, and we turn our focus from plastic to mechanically recycled textiles, taking a look at the downstream uses for the recycled material and how you can get involved. 

Now you may be aware of some of the alarming statistics of this already, but the average Australian throws out 23KG of textiles per year, giving us the dubious honour or being the second largest consumer of textiles per capita in the world, behind the US.

And if you sum those number up, with 26.3 Million people in Australia, that adds up to something like 604 million KG of textile waste every year. Clearly, as brands we need and responsibility to change this equation.

So to help on that path, my guest today is Michael Elias, founder of Upparel. As you’ll hear, the demand for domestic recycling of textiles here in Australia has enabled Michael to transition from ecommerce brand selling subscription socks to Australia’s largest mechanical textile recycler, in just a couple of years.  

A little like Plastic Bank that we spoke to last week on the show, Upparel have a strong focus on transparency and traceability when it comes to knowing exactly what your brand is recycling, and where that recycled material ends up. 

Perhaps most relevantly for the topic of this series, one of the most exciting parts of Upparel’s ecosystem is how they’re constantly innovating and working with downstream partners to rethink ‘waste textiles’ as a resource, replacing other virgin materials in a range of products from the fillers in boxing bags to home insulation.

That means that whether your waste problem related to overstock, returns, deadstock, post consumer product or even staff uniforms, Upparel has a solution to help you keep material out of landfill.