Unwanted clothes can be turned into building materials

Australia – A team of researchers have found a way to repurpose cheap garments into durable building materials.

The team, led by Veena Sahajwalla at the University of New South Wales, collected a random assortment of clothing from charity bins. They then manually removed fastenings such as zips and buttons, before passing the leftover fabrics – including cotton, polyester and nylon – through a fine-grain shredder. The resulting fleece was treated with a chemical to help the fibres stick together, and then compressed with heat to create solid panels.

After testing the panels, the team found them to be strong, water-resistant and minimally flammable. With textures and colours that resemble wood, ceramic or stone, the panels are suitable for use as interior finishes such as floor tiles or wall panels.

Born from such research, designers are repurposing waste materials such as clothing or plastic in order to implement Whole-system Thinking into their business.