Textile recycling at Australia Post Circular Proof of Concept Showcase

Here's what Australia Post said about the event on LinkedIn:

"This Green Postal Day, we were proud to host our Circular Proof of Concept Showcase – an immersive experience exploring how Australia Post could help power a circularity revolution, from purchase through to re-purpose.

"In collaboration with Sheridan, R. M. Williams, BlockTexx and REMONDIS Australia, we challenged the status quo by reimagining how Australia Post can enable the recovery and reuse of valuable resources in everyday items like shirts and sheets – that may otherwise end up in landfill.

"The concept explored how our trusted network and logistics expertise could deliver circularity as a service, helping Australians close the loop and reduce waste at scale."

"This initiative reflects our ongoing commitment to innovation, sustainability, and collaboration, and we’re excited to explore opportunities to pilot this work in the future."

And here's a transcript:

Richard Pittard, Chief Sustainability Officer at Australia Post: A lot of people talk about circularity and circular business model, but there’s very few that actually exist. We realised at Australia Post that we had a unique opportunity to enable circularity in Australia, but we can’t do it alone. The circularity proof of concept is a was of getting all of the value chain actors together, an actually translating something from theory into practice. Let’s see if we can make a circular business model stand up.

Marty Rowell, Head of Circularity & Decarbonisation at Australia Post: 220,000 tonnes of textiles end up in landfill every year. It’s a significant problem that touches the whole population. It was a natural place to start. Obviously, as Australia Post we support our customers in delivering clothing and apparel. What we’re now looking to do is extend that to customers, to be able to return those items when they’re finished with them, and then to be able to close the loop and really address how we can minimise the number of products going to landfill and actually improve that customer experience as well.

Megan Priest, Manager Strategy & Sustainability at R. M. Williams: For a consumer, they’re shopping on our website, they get to check out, and there’s a pop up and an offer to the customer: Recycle with R. M. Williams. From there, this is intended to be maybe an R. M. Williams piece that they’ve had and loved and worn for many, many years, and it’s come to the end of its life. So now, with this proposed solution, they’ll be able to receive a satchel from us directly with their next order.

Samantha Yap, Industry Pursuit Lead at Australia Post: With customer lodgement, the customer is going to get the satchel when they receive some freight. They’re going to look in their closet or hopefully they’ve got something lying around that they do want to recycle and they’re going to pop it in the satchel. From that point in time they will scan a QR code. They’ll pop their stuff in and via that QR code they’ll be taken to the Australia Post App where they can choose their lodgement.

Charlene Fernando, Product Manager – Group Product Consumer at Australia Post: Once the customer has lodged their articles digitally, we’ll either collect them from your home depending on the option you’ve chosen which is a future state option, or we’ll collect them from a parcel locker and they’ll be processed through our facilities, and they’ll proceed to the next step in our journey. We want sustainability to be embedded at every stage of the journey. In terms of the packaging, we’re looking at making them 100% recyclable.

Nathan Radley, Chief Sales Officer / Director at REMONDIS: When a satchel arrives at REMONDIS, essentially we’re doing a sorting and verification process. Our process is basically to quickly open and sort the package, identify any contamination, and send the material off to its destination as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Adrian Jones, Co-Founder at BlockTexx: We will receive the material from REMONDIS, and then it will be re-sorted into the fiber type and then it is shredded and then it arrives at our plant where through a chemical process we’ll separate it into, essentially, its building blocks of polyester and cellulose. The polyester can be converted back into textiles, so it can go back into clothing, and the cellulose will always go back into a hydro-mulch.

Marty Rowell: From here, we will continue to work with the brands. We will look at how we can extend this from just a proof of concept into a real-life pilot.

Richard Pittard: There’s been some really unique learnings through this process. I’m really excited for putting these learnings into practice and to stand up for a truly circular business model in Australia. This is all about collaboration and innovation at its best. It’s about Australia Post helping its customers to deliver circular solutions and to create value for all Australians. This is about delivering for the future.