Before you buy that T-shirt, would you pay $2 to recycle it?

Each year, I try to “do” Black Friday better. Ideally, my “training” would begin in early October with conversations among family members about Christmas presents, a stocktake of the linen closet and a list of “needs” – and the occasional “want” – I can wishlist on my favourite brands’ websites.

The argument, according to consumer psychologists, is by taking a planned approach to Black Friday we can minimise buying things we never really wanted, reducing both debt and waste, much of which still goes to landfill.

In reality, most of us don’t do any of the above, instead buying things we don’t need just because they are cheap, and, often, without consideration of how we will responsibly dispose of them.

How much are consumers prepared to pay to recycle their clothing? Retailers want to know.Credit: iStock

Australians are addicted to shopping. New data released ahead of the Black Friday period from Seamless, the government-supported clothing stewardship scheme, reports we are buying 53 items of clothing a year. That’s down slightly from 56 items, as reported by the Australia Institute several months ago.

At the same time, the rate of clothing recycling in Australia is slowly increasing, up 17 per cent since 2018 to 240 million garments. Still, the lack of accessible, affordable textile recycling infrastructure in this country means that number is at risk of plateauing or, worse, going backwards.

Ainsley Simpson, chief executive of Seamless, says developing a viable, affordable national recycling scheme within “months, not decades” is key to Seamless’ goals, which are funded by a small levy paid by member retailers on every garment sold.

According to Simpson, the sobering truth is that “we still have 222,000 tonnes [of clothing yearly] making its way to landfill because there is no national [recycling] system.”

Unlike simple plastics and paper, recycling textiles and clothing is complicated by the blended nature of many everyday fabrics, such as cotton-polyester, and the difficulty in separating the fibres. Complicated, but not impossible.

Meanwhile, retailers are trying to convince customers to fork out to recycle their clothes. Last month, The Iconic launched a partnership with Rcycl, a scheme designed to make recycling more convenient for consumers – for a fee. Consumers can buy a “reuse” bag, which is for clothing suitable for charities, or a “recycle” bag, for damaged garments or ones that cannot be resold, such as underwear.

According to The Iconic’s chief executive, Jere Calmes, the scheme reduces the labour of sorting through the mountains of clothing sent to charities each year by asking the consumer to do the initial work. “It takes a lot of the onus off the charities and companies,” he says.

Indeed, charities should spend more time distributing items to people in need and less time sorting people’s rubbish. But in leaving the consumer to shoulder the cost of participation – which averages about $2 per garment, depending on the type of Rcycl bag – some worry this puts too much onus on the end user, and not enough on industry for its role in over-production and over-selling.

User-pays recycling schemes, while great, are yet to crack the mainstream. Despite a rise in sustainable attitudes, consumers are largely unwilling to pay for clothing recycling, as highlighted in a report from RMIT University. The researchers found that of 3000 respondents, 68 per cent of consumers disagreed with paying an external company to collect their worn-out clothing, compared to just 15 per cent who agreed.

This statistic, coupled with our world-leading appetite for new clothing, should give brands pause. As the RMIT paper stated: “This point also implicates brands and retailers who might be interested in co-ordinating a clothing take-back scheme, noting that at least half of consumers surveyed are unwilling to contribute to the cost of returning the item to store.”

Simpson adds: “The organisations that put new product on the market are responsible for the whole of life [of that product] … We know Australians do want to do the right thing … but we are in a cost-of-living crisis … individual organisations are doing things that are helping … [but] siloed approaches are not going to serve us.”

Indeed, producers and brands need to take greater responsibility for minimising poor consumption behaviours in the first place. Some have responded by boycotting Black Friday sales, but in the long term, this isn’t the answer; people who want a bargain will seek one out regardless.

Instead, if more brands, especially the discount chains Australians flock to in tight times, committed to pushing for a national textile recycling scheme, in time that $2 could become $1 and, eventually, free. Then buying that discounted T-shirt would at least come with slightly less guilt, knowing it can be disposed of responsibly, with everyone having done their bit – not just the person wearing it.

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