A Case Study Engaging Design for Textile Upcycling

摘要

Textile waste has become an alarming challenge for the textile and apparel sector. The effect of exponential growth of waste with long-term decay time, toxic leaching, and methane emissions, is significantly harmful to landfill areas. There is an environmental responsibility for designers and manufacturers to acknowledge this level of textile waste and address these issues with solutions that intersect the traditional design, production, and end-use systems or create new ones. The research builds on a design project with a social firm where obsolete textiles from corporate uniforms are redesigned into children's apparel. The social firm 'Earthlink' utilizes a unique position in the local community, helping those with mental-health issues within a model that supports and operates sustainable business and environmental practice. Other large-scale corporate companies support this initiative by making available large volumes of discarded corporate wardrobe for the upcycling project. Massey University has been contributing to the project with design research supplementing design production with approaches to address textile waste issues in the industry and support community well-being.