by Lorna Gordon

For most people, an old school or work uniform is something tossed into the back of a cupboard, donated to charity, passed on to another student or eventually thrown away. For local sustainability advocate Annie Thompson, those discarded uniforms represented something entirely different opportunity.

Annie is the founder of Worn Up, an innovative Australian business tackling one of the country’ s growing environmental challenges: textile waste. Through years of experimentation, determination, and plenty of trial and error, Annie and her husband Murray Fuller have developed FABTEC ®, a world-first composite panel material created by recycling old uniforms and textile waste into durable products such as desks, tables, furniture and building materials.

The idea began after the couple started a school uniform business in 2016, supplying sustainable uniforms made from recycled polyester and organic cotton. While committed to sustainability, Annie quickly realised there was one major problem.

“ We started asking ourselves what happens at the end of a uniform’ s life? Most of them were going straight to landfill and we

realised that if we didn’ t find a solution, it was only going to become a bigger problem.”

With more than four million students wearing uniforms across Australia, the scale of the issue was staggering. Annie discovered polyester uniforms which are made from plastic fibres, can take up to 100 years to break down in landfill.

Despite having no scientific background, Annie became determined to create a practical solution. During COVID lockdowns, she spent two years researching textile waste while working towards a Master’ s degree in Sustainable Development. Alongside Murray, she invested her own money and worked tirelessly to experiment with different fibres and manufacturing techniques.

They focused on working with synthetic fibres to begin with and developed FABTEC ®, a material created by shredding old uniforms, blending fibres and pressing them at high temperatures to form strong, versatile panels. The innovative product was certified by the CSIRO, giving a valuable stamp of approval that can assure businesses they work with that the product is viable and their claims about it are genuine.

FABTEC ® has already diverted hundreds of tonnes of textile waste from landfill and has been

used in commercial projects for organisations including Bendigo Bank and The University of Melbourne. However they are looking for investment to purchase a new press to make larger sheets of FABTEC ® available, which will allow them to make larger items.

Earlier this year, Annie was recognised for her efforts when she was named Environmental Citizen of the Year at The Hills Shire Australia Day Awards. But Annie believes the journey is only just beginning.

“ My dream is for every child in Australia to sit at a desk made from recycled uniforms,” she says.

For Annie, sustainability is about changing the way people think about waste.

“ There’ s so much we throw away every day that can be reused,” she says.“ If more businesses start thinking about how their products can be disposed of or reused at the end of their life we will have a circular solution and we can create real change.”

Through Worn Up, Annie is proving that sometimes the solution to our biggest environmental challenges is already sitting right in front of us. If other businesses could get on board with their ideas, then we could make a huge dent in reducing the reusable waste that goes into our landfill every year.

Anni e is proud of developing FABTEC ®, a sustainable material made from old uniforms.