Grant: College & Community Social Innovation Fund

Clothing manufacturers buy raw materials with the aim of turning them into marketable products. While a certain amount of the purchased material and energy ends up embodied in products, approximately 12% of it ends up as 'non-product outputs' or waste. These so-called "offcuts" or "fabric scraps" go directly into the solid waste stream and are not only a cost because of the material loss, but also because of the required handling and waste disposal fees. With an expected increase of global garment production by 63% over the next six years, it is essential that the textile industry becomes circular and that valuable materials do not end up in landfills in which they take up space, contaminate groundwater, or biodegrade and contribute to climate change. Further, there is an urgency to support creation of a textile recycling industry in Canada, which requires a significant amount of feedstock to build robust supply chains. Fashion Takes Action (FTA) is a Canadian non-profit organization for sustainable fashion. FTA works with clothing manufacturers, brands and retailers, consumers, and textile recyclers, as well as the Canadian Circular Textiles Consortium (CCTC) to foster an integrated, circular system that eliminates global textile waste. With that goal in mind, FTA is partnering with Seneca Polytechnic’s Professor Sabine Weber, to build a web-based platform that will connect textile manufacturers with recycling companies, and which will use optimization algorithms to schedule scrap pickup and delivery, while minimizing distances and time required for transporting offcuts between locations. Once the platform is developed, it will be used to run pilot studies, aimed at platform validation, and understanding of the economic viability and the barriers for successful implementations of future recycling program at scale. Once the project is completed, FTA’s intent is to use the learnings from this project to introduce a scaled-up platform for companies in major Canadian industry centres, starting with the Greater Toronto Area.