A new ‘clothing graveyard’ concept has been started in Australia as a world-first to recycle discarded clothing and solve the problem of fast fashion.
This “world-first trial” and significant “full-circle moment” has returned discarded and damaged clothes to the cotton crops, where they originated, thanks to a solution that has so far produced “incredible, brilliant” outcomes.
One of the people spearheading the experiment in association with Cotton Australia is Meredith Conaty of Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC).
“We’ve known for a long time that cotton is biodegradable and we also know textile waste is such a huge problem, so it was just the logical next-step [to bring clothes back to the crops],” said Conaty.
“So that’s what we’ve been doing for the last few years, just tweaking the system, working out if we can put raw or blended textile waste just directly back onto a cotton farm.” she added.
A local cotton farmer explained how placing old clothes on cotton crops actually benefits the soil by retaining moisture.
Conaty said the discarded garments also help crops to retain nutrients and dramatically improves root growth. “They enhance the condition of the soil. So, for plants to grow in a kind of a healthy, productive, efficient way, they really depend on their root growth being as fast as they can,” she said.
