Canadians dispose of of clothing & textiles each year, and that number is sharply rising, driven by cheap clothing flooding the global market, combined with the growth of online shopping and fast fashion trends.
That amounts to about 37 kilograms of discarded textiles per person every year, with 85 per cent ending up in landfills where synthetic fibres can take hundreds of years to break down.
91ÒùĸÊÓƵ textile scientist studies the flow of second-hand clothing through the Canadian textiles market, with a view to understanding the types of clothing Canadians typically donate, and how much of it can be put out for resale at thrift stores. While many items donated are in good condition, a high proportion are so worn, stained or otherwise damaged that they wouldn’t be put out for sale.
This research led to a side project in which she and master’s student Wing Sem Mak launched a partnership with to see whether they could salvage some of the unacceptable clothing donations, restoring them for resale. Applying simple cleaning techniques, they returned what they could to the company’s stores in Edmonton and Saskatoon, where 66 per cent of the restored textiles were resold.