With a clear focus on making positive steps towards circularity, eBay Australia, with support from the Australian Fashion Council, has proudly announced Dempstah as the overall winner of the 2024 Circular Fashion Fund. The innovative business, which is focused on recycling textile waste, has been selected to receive the leading prize fund of $100,000 AUD. Runners-up, The Very Good Bra and RCYCL, have been awarded $50,000 AUD each to support their circular business solutions.
With every Australian buying 56 items of new clothing a year and throwing away 200,000 tonnes into landfill each year, eBay’s Circular Fashion Fund was established to help scale and develop the circular fashion economy by supporting innovation and aligning with the fashion industry’s goals to achieve circularity by 2030.
The winner was announced at eBay Australia’s Sydney office with the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, The Hon. Tanya Plibersek MP, in attendance along with more than 70 industry representatives.
eBay Australia’s Fashion Lead, Anne-Marie Cheney, said: “At eBay, our purpose is to provide economic opportunity for all, and we have a proud history of helping businesses grow through various grants globally. Circularity is the future of the fashion industry and we all have a part to play in making that transition. Initiatives like eBay’s Circular Fashion Fund are an important step towards achieving that goal, and we’re incredibly proud to have launched it in Australia this year. We know the businesses awarded today will drive positive change in the fashion industry.”
In a speech at the event, Minister Plibersek said: “eBay is a great enabler of circularity supporting the second-hand market and allowing it to thrive, and in backing innovators to grow circularity further.”
More about the winners
Dempstah
- After spending over a decade studying and working in fashion and textiles all around the world, the Designer and Founder of Dempstah, Guy Dempster, knew that the current approach to textile production and consumption needed to change.
- Dempstah is a design practice that recycles Australian textile waste into spun yarn in collaboration with a network of international and local textile mills. Their mission is to ensure waste traceability and establish fibre recovery facilities locally in Australia by establishing a mill in North West Tasmania. Their current product offering includes spun yarn suitable for knitwear production and recovered fibre, which can be used as an alternative to traditional synthetic fibre fill-in garments, homewares and furniture.
- Dempstah recently collaborated with the Salvos and the City of Sydney to take post-consumer waste from their stores and transform 500kgs (half a metric tonne) into 5ply cotton and wool blend yarn.
RCYCL
- Belinda Paul, Founder of RCYCL, was struck with tragedy when she was evacuated from her home during the summer bushfires 2019/2020 and then was hit by the pandemic. RCYCL was born because she wanted to do something to overcome the daunting thoughts of global warming and world pollution.
- With 200,000 tonnes of clothing going to landfills each year, RCYCL provides a direct-to-consumer satchel that allows people to easily recycle their used clothing at the end of its life cycle. Clothing items are sent to a textile recycling partner to process at their partner Indian Mill to make new yarn or carpet underlay, depending on the fibre composition. The service creates an immediate impact on the environment while contributing to a circular economy.
The Very Good Bra
- After going through breast cancer treatment and struggling to find good wire-free bras, Stephanie Devine, Founder of The Very Good Bra, was determined to create a plastic-free bra. This led to her creating The Very Good Bra, the brand behind the world's first 100% compostable botanically circular bra that breaks down in three to six months in compost or eight weeks in a worm farm.
- The Very Good Bra set out to innovate new types of undergarments that could break down cleanly at the end of their life and thereby avoid landfills. The Very Good Bra uses only natural materials, including sewing thread and labelling, designing out the need for spandex (plastic) at the outset. It has rallied the industry to pioneer a world-first Australian Standard for Textile waste which is in development now.