Our enews update, On the Textile Beat November 2021, includes this graphic, below, summarising circular textile approaches: practical, mechanical, chemical, microbial and by design which I shared at a recent Circular Economy Futures event in Brisbane.
Everyone can enact the practical approach through everyday actions and choices as per the Slow Clothing Manifesto: think, natural, quality, local, few, care, make, revive, adapt and salvage.
There are incredible changes happening in this period of time that will be important for the history of the human race, Queensland Government Minister Leeanne Enoch told The Circular Economy: it’s our future forum in Brisbane yesterday.
As Minister for Environment and the Great Barrier Reef, Minister for Science and Minister for the Arts, Ms Enoch said there are certain actions we have to take right now in the way we utilise materials, how we tackle climate change, and use energy and resources in everyday life.
“When I visited Wujal Wujal community in far north Queensland after recent weather events, the elders said there are no stories passed down the generations who have lived there to deal with rapid change in climate,” Ms Enoch said.
“We are a speck in time. There have been 3000 generations of people in this place, which is home to great natural gifts like the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree rainforests. But what is happening to our climate is new.
Minister Leeanne Enoch (top left), Uli Becker (bottom left), at The Circular Economy forum and (bottom right) Textile Beat’s Jane Milburn with Blocktexx co-founder Graham Ross.
By Jane Milburn Textile Beat founder and sustainability consultant
Textile Beat founder Jane Milburn clothed in wool garments given a second life using eco-dye. Photo by Ele Cook
My campaign on clothing waste has been a lifetime in the making. It began as a child learning hand-making skills and continued as a student upcycling big old dresses and thrifted finds.
I made many of my clothes for decades then rediscovered op shops in 2011 after a Fashion for Flood fundraiser. I began visiting op shops and particularly seeking out natural-fibre garments – wool jumpers with a hole, linen shirts with a missing button. The waste of resources troubled me because I grew up on a farm and have an agricultural science degree. What was happening to our clothing culture I wondered?