Closing Textile Circularity Loops: Reuse and Relationalities at the Renew Earth Sweat Shop

According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), Singapore produced 254,000 tonnes of textile and leather waste in 2022, but only 2 per cent of this was recycled (down from 4 per cent in 2021 and 2020). This large textile circularity gap has engendered a greater emphasis on mitigating fashion waste among various stakeholders in recent years. In a bid to identify barriers to a more circular business model, the Textile and Fashion Federation of Singapore (TaFF) commissioned a Toward Zero Fashion Waste Market study.

As opposed to a linear take-make-dispose model, a circular one has been touted as an alternative paradigm for ameliorating resource depletion while reducing waste generation. The central tenets of a circular economy include (a) the closure of material and energy loops, as well as (b) the extension of the life span of a commodity’s life-span (i.e., slowing down the movement of materials). Material/energy circularity loops are said to be closed when outputs (i.e., “waste”) are being turned into inputs (i.e., resources or energy) for another new production cycle.

Meanwhile, fast fashion has been deemed one of the most “polluting and wasteful industries in the world”. Textiles are notoriously difficult to recycle; even as more sophisticated technologies are being devised to do so. Textile recycling is most viable when fabric is 100 per cent cotton and when done so in large volumes. By contrast, fabric that are a blend of natural and synthetic fibres is difficult to separate for recycling. Consequently, this implies that fashion rescue, the repair of garments and the repurposing of scrap fabric are important R-behaviours in textile waste management.

R-behaviours (also known as R-hierarchies or R-imperatives) are ways in which a circular economy can be operationalised. In particular, scholars like Reike et al. (2018) have outlined a comprehensive typology of R-behaviours, which they call resource value retention options (ROs). These ROs are sequenced according to an order of priority, beginning with: refuse (R0), reduce (R1), resell/reuse (R2), repair (R3), refurbish (R4), remanufacture (R5), repurpose (R6), recycle (material, R7), recover (waste-to-energy recovery R8), ending with remine (R9).

Joining RESS

In May 2022, I took up a year-and-a-half stint as a textile sewing and upcycling workshop assistant with Renew Earth Sweat Shop (RESS). Being privy to the inner workings of this initiative has allowed me to glean some fruitful insights on textile sustainability in Singapore.

I had initially joined RESS with the intention of learning to use a sewing machine and to gain access to unwanted textiles. Shortly after, I became a postdoctoral fellow at ARI and was conducting fieldwork on household plastic waste. I soon noticed the overlaps between textile and plastic waste, as well as parallels in how recycling these materials has been challenging. It has been reported that more than half of global fashion waste is composed of synthetic polymers, such as polyester. Polyester is arguably the most widely used material in textiles/clothing, but unlike other plastic items, the material derivation of polyester is not apparent and tends to “evade consumers’ critical scrutiny”. At the same time, I also became interested in the R-behaviours (e.g., rescue, recirculate, repurpose) that community groups mobilised to deal with excess or discarded objects but were neglected by state policies. RESS’s organisers were aware of my positionality as a researcher and invited me to write a short reflexive piece on my engagements with textile “waste”. This essay is an extended version of that reflexive write-up.

During my time at RESS, I employed ethnographic methods by observing or participating in art/craft-making workshops and sharing sessions that run the gamut from botanical dyeing, patchwork making to weaving T-shirt yarn. I also met and “hung out” with workshop instructors and textile artists, besides those who visited RESS’s pop-up booths. Most of these sessions involve what  Isenhour and Reno (2019) would consider “deliberate acts of re-evaluation and care” for fashion “waste”. In recuperating value from unwanted fabric/apparel (i.e., transforming them into [wearable] art/craft objects), these sessions subvert a consumerist culture of hyper-materialism, planned obsolescence or disposability. 

Takeaways for Circular Economies

My stint at RESS has provided two main takeaways that can enrich the scholarship on circular economies.

First, I build on Reike et al.’s (2018) distinction of circularity loops to highlight the R-behaviours that RESS has applied to slow down, shorten, and close textile circularity loops. Reike et al. have classified their hierarchy of R-behaviours or ROs into short, medium, and long circularity loops. Short loops (R0-R3) exist in proximity to the consumer, with products circulating within these reuse/repair loops retaining their maximum value by keeping their initial form and function. Medium loops (R4-R6) may involve the upgrading (i.e., refurbishing) or creative repurposing of a product. Long loops (R7-R9) entail waste processing activities (i.e., recycling, energy recovery) that are far removed from the consumer, with products losing their original form/utility. These longer loops are the least resource efficient, but tend to predominate in state policies, often at the expense of closing shorter reuse loops.

Second, I cite Bourriaud’s (1998) relational aesthetics to shed light on the relation(ship)s driving circular textile crafting/art-making and foreground relationality as the underlying precondition enabling R-behaviours. According to Bourriaud, relational art takes “the [public] realm of human interaction” as its “theoretical horizon” rather than a narrow focus on commercialised private spaces such as art galleries or specific artistic objects. In other words, relational art takes the sphere of social interaction as its medium for art making.

Given that R-behaviours such as repurposing require ingenuity, artists, creatives, and crafters are well positioned to enact transformative change in this arena. Urban planners and businesses involved in repairing/refurbishing products as well as managing waste are commonly perceived as stakeholders that can contribute positively to a circular economy, but scholars are just beginning to focus on how artists can animate circular activities and activisms. I seek to invigorate more discussions within this nascent body of work.

(Re)centering the neglected Rs: Rescue, repair, recirculation, repurpose (for reuse)

Scholars are just beginning to acknowledge how reuse has been an understudied and underutilised strategy.  Reike et al. have addressed how reselling intersects with reuse, with resale returning a product to the market economy for reuse without much adaptation. I build on Reike et al.’s typology by contending that rescue, recirculation, repair and repurpose are interventions that must occur before textile/clothing can be reused. My intention is not to add even more R-behaviours to the mix but to present a more robust conceptualisation of reuse which rescue, recirculation, repair and repurpose can be subsumed under.

I posit that RESS has (re)formulated R-behaviours that can add to Reike et al.’s framework in at least two ways. First, RESS incubates textile craft ideas/techniques that put into practice pertinent but frequently neglected R-behaviours that close short reuse loops locally (as opposed to transnationally). These neglected R-behaviours include rescue, which has been omitted in Reike et al.’s typology and, to a lesser extent, repair (R3), recirculation and repurpose (R6). Recirculation is featured obliquely in resell/reuse (R2).

In particular, RESS espouses a hierarchy for handling of fabric waste that is closely aligned with Lansink's reduce, reuse, recycle and the logic by which Reike et al. order their ROs. Artist Woon Tien Wei, who is RESS’s organiser, encourages the rescue of discarded/donated apparel first for reuse without much adaptation if they are “too good” to be deconstructed. Within the freecycling/freegan community, “rescue” is sometimes used to denote how things are being (directly) saved from the rubbish bin or the incinerator. Fashion rescue redirects textiles from the incinerator. In this case, it involves adopting or recirculating clothes at RESS pop-up stalls with the intention of retaining most of their original form and function. Keeping a product close to its initial form/function and its end-users is a way to shorten circularity loops.

The repair (R3) of slightly defective garments further slows down their movement through circularity loops. A range of repair related workshops have been conducted to illustrate how old clothes can be mended or altered for a better fit. Lastly, repurposing (R6) and upcycling “unwearable clothing” and scrap fabric are last resorts, because they entail a loss of original form/function.

Second, whereas Reike et al. (2018) conceive of repurposing as a medium loop activity slightly removed from the consumer because the task is presumably performed by a crafter/artisan, I evince that RESS has managed to shorten such repurposing loops in two ways. First, it closes the distance between the product and the consumer by encouraging consumers to produce their own “custom-made” fabric “artwork”. Second, the repurposed object creates new value, form and function which are sometimes not very far from their original form/function.

The repair of garments and the repurposing of fabric by hand are modalities to slow down fast fashion and the textile circularity loop. Repurposing textile often involves some degree of time-consuming, labour intensive hand crafting such as knitting, crocheting, braiding and sewing, which may elicit a stronger sense of attachment to the “artwork” . The assumption is that individuals will be less likely to casually dispose of their repurposed items. Apart from keeping alive the cultural legacies of crafting techniques, upcycling/repurposing projects stimulate what Haraway (2016) calls “sympoiesis” or collective creativity. I suggest that this creative labour is manifested vis-à-vis designerly thinking and aesthetic experimentation.

Aside from RESS, another ground-up community initiative called Singapore Really Really Free Market (SRRFM) also shortens circularity loops by promoting the recirculation as well as cascading reuse of items in good condition that would otherwise go to waste. As Singapore’s longest-running flea market based on a gift economy, SRRFM serves as a physical divestment/redistribution platform for people to give or take things, especially garments.

(Re)turning to the relational: Aesthetic and other relationalities

Whereas circularity loops have been conceived as material (recycling of resources) and energy (converting waste to energy) loops in the literature, I argue that these loops are more crucially relational ones. A relational turn is taking place in sustainability research, but this has yet to reach the scholarship on circular economies. There is no fixed definition of what the relational is, but approaches guided by a relational ontology typically recognise the interdependency of relationships, as well as the blurring of ecological and societal spheres. In particular, Haraway (2016) terms a collaborative mode of relating to our (more than)human world by “making odd kin”.  From a relational perspective then, a piece of unwanted fabric or garment is not just a discrete object, but is constituted by/of “ongoing [relational] practices of living in the ruins, or in other words, environmental devastation”. 

Academics working in the field on circular economies have added to an ever-expanding list of R-behaviours. However, they have overlooked the most fundamental 'R' that undergirds and facilitates circular practices—relationalities. My engagements with RESS have prompted me to put the relational into a productive conversation with circular R-behaviours. RESS can be understood as a manifestation of relational art. Woon (2012), cofounder of the independent arts collective, Post-Museum and co-organiser of SRRFM, has used Bourriaud's “relational aesthetics” to consider the social encounters arising from SRRFM as a medium for artmaking. Similarly, I think that RESS is built on some of these guiding principles, with its complimentary workshops, non-hierarchical organisation, and soft activism. Furthermore, artists/crafters play a unique role in rendering waste work meaningful by repackaging it as a “leisurely” pursuit or as a creative endeavour, especially with respect to repurposing.

RESS pop-ups are a social interstice that “tighten the space of relations” among individuals as well as between individuals and material objects, such as textiles. This happens through convivial encounters among workshop attendees or just by working alongside each other on RESS’s communal sewing machines. These encounters may deepen to entail the exchange of innovative strategies for sprucing up a boring outfit or making something out of leftover haberdashery/fabric. Simultaneously, the crafter-material relation is cultivated through the making process.

Following Bourriaud, I have found that circularity loops can be shortened more effectively by fostering and tightening the connections across potential reusers of a resource. I conceive of tightening as including, but not limited to, the shortening/localising loops as well as strengthening these relations of co-existing/co-creating with others. To do this, we need communal, participatory art initiatives like RESS that exceed the political economic framing of circularity by embodying an ethics of care for “waste”, the environment, and the social fabric.

My hope is that circular policies/practices in Singapore will prefer shorter reuse loops rather than privilege longer recycling/recovery loops for better resource/energy efficiency. In so doing, we can better reflect on the complexities of “ethical response-abilit[ies]” and cultivate “a responsive praxis of responsibility” for the waste we generate.

The views expressed in this forum are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, or the institutions to which the authors are attached.