Q&A with Bristol Waste

We were lucky enough to be able to collaborate with Bristol Waste on a special collaboration project with the MShed. We had a special collection point at their St Phillips recycling centre, there were so many donations and we managed to get exactly what was needed to go away and create the garment. The exhibition is titled ‘Think Local, Act Bristol’ - so Bristol Waste could not have been a more perfect partner in providing fabric for the project.

Nohelia Fernandez works in the community engagement team at Bristol Waste, and is the one who so successfully coordinate this collaboration.

We had a quick Q&A with her, discussing the main issues with fashion waste, and what it is that Bristol Waste does to tackle the textile waste issue locally.

What is your role at Bristol Waste?
I’m a Community Engagement Officer which means I talk to people living in Bristol about waste management and sustainability. I love meeting community groups, students and schoolchildren and helping them to reduce waste in their household, school or neighbourhood.

When people get rid of their clothes at a BW site, what happens to them?
80% of households in Bristol have their recycling collected weekly from the kerbside. If you have clean, wearable textiles you no longer want, you can put them in an untied carrier bag in their black recycling box to be collected. The key thing is that these textiles need to be wearable so that they can be loved and worn again. If you have a lot of textiles to recycle or to be reused, you can bring them to one of our Recycling Centres or to a charity shop near where you live. 

What happens to clothes/textiles that can’t be re-sold in the re-use shops?
In the Reuse shop, textiles and clothes are sold for a super reasonable price to be rehomed. Clothes that haven’t been re-sold after a long period of time, will be put into the textile recycling bank.

What are the main challenges in recycling clothing/textiles?
Fast fashion has dramatically decreased the value of clothes and textiles. Because fast fashion clothes are produced at an extremely high rate, often with fabrics that don’t last long, they're not always of a good enough quality to be reused or even recycled. Materials of the same type are recycled together, but fabrics can be made up of many different materials which makes them difficult to recycle, especially if they include microplastics. The same is true when textiles say they are made from 'recycled materials' as it can be unknown what the fabric contains.

Do you think these challenges are specific to Bristol, or something that we face nationally?
These challenges are definitely something we're facing nationally. We're lucky in Bristol to have lots of options for buying second-hand, recycling and rehoming clothes, including swapping and a huge array of charity shops and vintage shops to choose from. Bristol is the number one core city for recycling in England, so there is clearly an appetite to make better choices for the environment.

Does BW have any future engagement plans on reducing local fashion waste?
We always encourage people to reduce their textiles and fashion waste and encourage upcycling and mending (see our blog post: from rags to riches) and we love the ideas that Sustainable Fashion Week share. We also send out regular tips for all kinds of waste reduction in our monthly newsletter which you can sign up to here: Community Engagement - Bristol Waste Company.

We're also working on adding fashion as a topic in our Waste Nothing Schools Challenge for Secondary Schools, but this is very much in the early development stages so you'll just have to watch this space!

Which one of our 4 themes do you resonate with the most, and why? (Rewear,repurpose, reconnect, regenerate)
Rewear is something that I live by more and more as each day goes by. I encourage others to rewear something again and again, especially if they love it, they shouldn’t be ashamed to be wearing it constantly! Reconnect is something that I really believe in. When we reconnect with each other and nature, we will understand how invaluable it is to swap, reuse, rewear, and reduce the damage that fast fashion and overconsumption has done to us and our planet.

A very big thank you goes to Nohelia and her team at Bristol Waste!

SFW Team x