To meet growing demand, UPPAREL has just made its biggest investment yet in new technology that changes the scale of Australia’s onshore textile recycling capabilities entirely.“It’s the only technology of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere,” Michael Elias, CEO and co-founder, says. “The investment will deliver a tenfold increase in our capacity, with automation efficiencies producing fibre that is world leading.“We’re leading the way and demonstrating that waste isn’t waste until we waste it.”Significant growth has come from corporates taking responsibility for the end-of-life of uniforms and linen, with the healthcare and hospitality industries stepping up and being accountable.UPPAREL’s facility of the future has laid the foundation for significant decarbonisation of Australia’s textile industry, having already prevented an estimated 60 million kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions.This impact has been made measurable through the development of purpose-built traceability technology, built over five years in consultation with more than 2000 partners.“The digital monitoring application allows us to track each partner’s textiles through every stage of the recycling process, down to the individual Uptex panel, UPPAREL’s proprietary finished material,” Elias says.Uptex is the clearest expression of what genuine circularity looks like in practice. UPPAREL manufactures board, fibre and felt underlay from 100 per cent recycled textiles. For the company’s partners, this means their retired textiles can become a part of the fit-out of their own boardrooms, offices and distribution centres.The level of transparency and traceability UPPAREL offers its partners is paramount to the process, given the global movement to decarbonise. The verified recycling data the company provides its partners can translate directly into their reporting and ESG strategy.UPPAREL co-founders Tina and Michael Elias. Ambition becomes reality UPPAREL’s work has led to its certification as a B Corporation, verified for meeting rigorous standards for social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. The group’s commitment to building awareness of Australia’s onshore circular ecosystem reflects its mission to make the linear economy a thing of the past.“Our education vision at UPPAREL goes beyond teaching the next generation how to recycle,” says Tina Elias, general manager and co-founder.“We want to help create a generation that understands the value of materials, thinks differently about consumption and sees circularity as fundamental to the way we design and live,” she says.“Through our education programs, school tours and STEM initiatives, we are giving students the opportunity to see the circular economy in action, from discarded textiles through to new materials and products.“Our goal is to make sustainability tangible, inspiring and relevant, while equipping young people with the knowledge and curiosity to become the innovators, consumers and leaders who will shape a more circular future.”In the last 12 months, UPPAREL has scaled up its capabilities to be able to continue diverting the nation’s textile waste but doing so onshore, in one of the world’s most secure recycling facilities.When the company’s newly acquired technology becomes operational within the next six months, it will mark a turning point in Australian manufacturing, and a step onto the global leaderboard in textile recycling and recovery.A tenfold increase in capacity, world-leading fibre output and proof that a circular economy built onshore, for Australia, is not an ambition but a reality.“The numbers tell one story: 17 million kilograms diverted, 60 million kilograms of emissions prevented – a Southern Hemisphere first,” says Tina Elias.“The deeper story belongs to the generation inheriting a country where textile waste has a destination, and that destination is here, onshore, in Australia.”To find out more, visit upparel.com.au