Slide 1

TEXTILE
SAVIOURS

My name is Si Yuan and these are my

fellow group members, Sock Yii, Harsh,
Benjamin and Chee Wei.

Group members: Tay Si Yuan

Chua Sock Yii
Harsh Saraswat
Benjamin Lim
Soh Chee Wei

Slide 2

- Disposed

- Recycled

Slide 3

2011
2010
2009

Lets start with some statistics obtained

from the National Environment Agency
in Singapore. In 2009, the total textile
waste output is at about 109 thousand
tonnes. This gradually increased over
the years, to about 130 thousand
tonnes in 2011. However, as we can see
here, the amount of textile waste
recycled throughout these recent years
is relatively low at about 12%.

Take a look at this picture of old clothes

for example. As fashion trend changes,
people buy more and more new clothes
to keep up with the fashion trend. But
then what happens to the old clothes?

Slide 4

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Hence, we decided to conduct a survey

among 100 households in this district
to gain more information.

Slide 7

Among our survey respondents, 65% of

households told us that they purchase
new clothes monthly.

How often do you purchase new clothing?

20%

65%

15%

Monthly

Yearly
No Fixed Period

Slide 8

However, 70% of the households

dispose of their old clothes.

What do you do with your old clothes?

15%
15%

70%

Slide 9

Dispose

Reuse
Recycle

BUT
WHY

Why do they do that? So we asked

them their reasons for disposing their
unwanted textiles and here are the
answers we got.

Slide 10

From our survey findings, the first

reason households gave was the lack of
incentive to recycle textiles. By selling
their unwanted textiles to the rag-andbone man, they receive monetary
benefits. Hence, households would
keep their unwanted textiles for the
event that the rag-and-bone-man
comes along, or they would just
dispose of them.

Slide 11

The second reason households gave

was the problem of inconvenience.
Take person A who lives in Jurong for
example. He takes twenty whole
minutes by private transport just to
travel to the nearest Salvation Army
point in Bukit Timah to donate his
unwanted
textiles.
Furthermore,
Salvation Army is the only place in
Singapore where you can donate
textiles, and as you can see here, there
are very few Salvation Army points
around Singapore. Given that Salvation
Army not only collects textiles but also
other types of items such as furniture,
there is currently no concerted effort in
Singapore to recycle textiles. Also, from
our skit, there are even people who are
unaware of the existence of the
Salvation Army.

20
minutes

Slide 12

Last but not least, 7 out of 10 people

we surveyed are unaware of the
negative impacts of textile wastage,
and hence continue to dispose of their
unwanted textiles. What about you?
Are you one of these 7 people? Do you
know that disposing textiles actually
have detrimental effects on our
environment and economy? Allow me
to pass my time now to Sock Yii who
will be sharing with you about these
impacts.

Slide 13

Today, I am going to talk about the

detrimental impacts of textile wastage.
Im sure many of your in this room had
thrown away many textile products, be
it clothing, or any other things made of
textiles. However, as you throw them
away, have you ever wondered, what
are the implications of your actions? As
mentioned earlier by Siyuan, more and
more textiles are being disposed of due
to the various causes addressed
previously.

IMPACTS

Slide 14

Pulau Semakau

Take a look at this slide, do any of your

know what this island is? It is actually
an aerial view of Singapores one and
only offshore landfill, Pulau Semakau.
As the amount of textile wastage
increases, it had also caused the
amount of textile waste transported to
this landfill to increase. Eventually, this
phenomenon will occur.

Slide 15

So?

Slide 16

$ 610, 000, 000

Slide 17

ECONOMIC
COSTS

You may be wondering now, whats so

bad about this phenomenon? Its not
my house anyway. Yes, it may not be
your house, it may not have any effect
on your living environment currently,
but YOUR constant disposal of textile
will put a strain on YOUR countrys
financial resources

as offshore landfills are expensive. For

all you may know, it costs $610 million
to build Pulau Semekau! With the high
cost involved for its construction, it is
no wonder that high maintenance fees
would also be needed in time to come,
especially with the rising vast amount
of textile waste drowning this landfill.

Having said this, we can see that the

cost of textile waste cannot be
underestimated as the large amount of
money used in dealing with this waste
can be channelled to other areas of
development of our country.

Slide 18

In the long run, resources used as raw

materials for the manufacturing of
textiles will also be drained.

In the long run,

Slide 19

NOTHING

Slide 20

THE AVERAGE T-SHIRT WASTES

700 GALLONS
OF WATER
DURING MANUFACTURNING

Thats 140 jugs of me!

These resources include, water, cotton,

petroleum, and even human labour,
especially when more and more
manpower are needed to produced
more textiles to replace the old ones
that are discarded away. However, if we
continue to dispose textiles as and
when we like, all these resources will
be gone! So whats left? NOTHING. Yes,
absolutely NOTHING! These precious,
finite resources are valuable for our
countrys sustainable development and
should be conserved whenever
possible.

Take the case of apparel manufacturing

for example, just an average shirt alone,
its manufacturing process wastes 700
gallons of water. And thats actually
equivalent to 140 of these water jugs
you see here!

Slide 21

Imagine, if everyone of your in this

room were to recycle one T-shirt each,
JUST ONE, thousands of gallons of
water would have been conserved! To
sum it all up, textile wastage leads to
the exhaustion of resources. Do you
want your country to face a shortage of
resources in the near future? I bet you
dont.

Slide 22

So, we have to act fast, for there is an

obvious and urgent need for
appropriate strategies to tackle these
causes of wastage

Slide 23
Waste is NOT waste, but POTENTIAL
RESOURCES to be used again.

as waste is not waste, but potential

resources to be used again. With
appropriate strategies, it will help to
effectively minimize textile waste as
well as the detrimental economic and
environmental impacts it has on our
society.
Now, Ill pass the time to Harsh, to
elaborate on the first part of our
strategies. Thank You.

Slide 24

STRATEGIES

Slide 25

Stark Textiles Industries

Slide 26

e-Textiles

We intend to start off by setting up a

company
called
Stark
Textiles
Industries, to initiate our various
measures to spread awareness as well
as reduce and recycle textile waste.

What do you see on the screen here? It

is actually the homepage of the website
we created. Our first strategy, called eTextiles, is essentially creating a
company website with various features
which aid us in our aim of trimming
textile wastage.

Slide 27

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Slide 29

The second feature is called the Textile

Man Program.

Textile Man
Programme

Slide 30

Slide 31

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Rewards!

Slide 33

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Surf n
Shop

Slide 35

Think Tank

The final feature of the website is called

Surf n Shop. Similarly, we want to make
trendy clothes from the old textiles
collected from the Textile Man program
and make them available for online
purchase.

Slide 36

Love
Textiles
Campaign

Slide 37
Love Textiles
Campaign

Roadshow

Slide 38

Workshop

Hello everyone, as addressed by the

previous speaker, yes Im Benjamin and
Ill be talking to you on the other
strategy that our group has proposed
on reducing textile wastage. Were
going to organize this campaign called
Love Textiles Campaign.

We will be dividing this campaign into 2

parts, namely a roadshow and a
workshop. Now, let us focus on the
roadshow first. I believe no one in this
room has ever attended a textile
roadshow because no such roadshow
has been organized before! Hence, our
company will be organizing the very
first textile roadshow in Singapore, and
I believe this will be interesting to the
public.

What youre seeing on the screen now

is an outline of our roadshow, which
will be held at the Suntec Convention
Centre. The booths set up will mainly
address

Slide 39

Causes

Impacts

Our
efforts

the various causes of textile wastage,

and its present and future implications,
and the current efforts put in by our
organization to reduce textile wastage
in Singapore today.

Slide 40

Employees from our company will be

there to mend the booths, to answer
any questions that our roadshow
participants have.

Slide 41

The gallery will then be displaying

several pictures of the detrimental
effects of textile wastage to the
environment,

Slide 42

Slide 43

Slide 44

Slide 45

and also pictures of textile collection

from households in action. What youve
just seen are some pictures that we are
planning to put up during the
roadshow.

Slide 46

Slide 47

Let us move on to the workshop. Many

of us do not realize how much damage
we are causing to the environment
whenever we dispose textiles as and
when they like. What about you? Do
you know what happens when you
dispose your unwanted clothes? Let me
show you what happens.

Slide 48

As mentioned earlier in the causes of

wastage, the lack of awareness could
be one of the reasons why we are
unfamiliar with the extent of the
damage we are doing to the
environment. But what if we could
change this unappealing sight,

Slide 49

to something that looks like this?

Slide 50

Or maybe even this?

Slide 51

Recycled textiles can not only be used

to create useful products, but it can
also save the environment at the same
time. Hence, we are planning to
conduct a workshop throughout the
entire roadshow using volunteers
trained by our company, which teaches
the participants several methods in
creating useful products from old and
unwanted textiles.

Slide 52

These participants can join and leave

whenever they want, without having a
need to register for it.

Slide 53

Materials will also be provided for

them, which makes it very convenient
for them.

Slide 54

Im sure many of you here like free stuff

right? Hence, we have decided to make
this workshop free of charge for
everyone, enticing people to participate
in this workshop.

Slide 55

Also, live demonstrations on how to go

about converting old and unwanted
textiles into useful products will be
conducted

Slide 56

and flyers will be distributed to attract

more participants.

Slide 57

Curious about what useful products can

be made from old and unwanted
textiles? Heres a grocery bag, made
entirely from an old T-shirt. It can
withstand even more weight than a
normal plastic bag. This is beneficial to
products that are heavy and require
more than one plastic bag to hold
them. Hence, with this workshop in
place, we are able to tackle both the
evils of textile and plastic wastage.

Slide 58

As the roadshow is an annual event,

and such opportunities dont come
easy, why not grab hold of it and have
fun while learning how to save the
environment from textile wastage at
the same time? Thank you and I will
now pass my time over to our next
speaker, Chee Wei, who will be
elaborating on the effectiveness of our
strategies.

Slide 59

Thank you Benjamin.

Continuing on from my previous
speakers, I will now address some of
the problems that we may face when
implementing our strategies

Problems

Slide 60

Solutions

Slide 61

Shortage of
Manpower

Slide 62

as well as some of the possible

solutions that we may adapt in order to
minimize these problems.

After reviewing our textile man

programme, we realised that we
needed a large amount of manpower in
order to ensure that our collections are
made on time. However, a possible
problem arises when there is a
shortage of labour, because people are
unwilling to join a labour intensive
industry like ours.

This could result in delayed collections,

which will further inconvenience the
donors and make them even more
unwilling to donate their textiles to us.
This would reduce the effectiveness of
our strategy.

Delayed Collections

Slide 63

Local University
Students

To solve this, we turn to local university

students who are currently doing
volunteering work or social work.

Slide 64

One way to use these volunteers is to

attach one textile man with three to
four volunteer. They can then go to a
specific area in Singapore, where they
will split up to different households to
make collections. This will ensure that
our collections are made on time and
people
do
not
get
further
inconvenienced by the collections.

Slide 65

A common problem that many online

stores are facing is the lack of trust.

Lack
of Trust

Slide 66

Quality of
clothing

Slide 67

Word of
Mouth

Slide 68

Customers cannot actually feel or try

on the clothing, and as such, will have
doubts on the quality of clothing
provided. This is especially true for us
because we are a relatively new brand,
and the concept of using recycled
textiles to make clothes is relatively
new in Singapore.

This is important for us because the

main way we advertise our website is
through the word of mouth, and so if
people give negative reviews about our
website, this will reduce the
effectiveness of our web store.

To overcome this, we are planning to

set up booths in the roadshow, to
display and showcase our clothing.
Visitors to the roadshow can feel the
clothing and even try them on. This will
ensure them that our clothing is of high
quality and comparable to those made
from non-recycled textiles.

Slide 69

Suntec Convention Centre

Speaking of our roadshow, it is held in

Suntec Convention Centre, which is
located in the city. This makes it a
convenient place for people as it is
easily accessible from all parts of
Singapore. Since it is so convenient, it
would further entice people to join in
on the fun.
However, one major drawback of our
roadshow is that it is only held once per
year and at only one specific location.
This will put people who are unable to
attend the roadshow due to personal or
work commitments at a disadvantage.

Slide 70

We propose to include more, smallerscaled roadshow throughout the year

at different parts of Singapore. This
would ensure that our efforts to raise
awareness of textile wastage is
sustained and can reach out to even
more people in the neighbourhoods.

Slide 71

This can be done by cooperating with

various community centres and
grassroot clubs.

Community Centres

Slide 72
I only feel angry when I see waste.

When I see people throwing away

Mother Teresa once said, I only feel

angry when I see waste, when I see
people throwing away things that we
could use.

things we could use.

-Mother Teresa

Slide 73

100%

of textiles disposed

Almost

Out of the 130 thousand tonnes of

textiles disposed in Singapore, almost
100% of them can be recycled.
However, majority of the textiles end
up in Pulau Semakau as waste.
Are

Recyclable

Slide 74
Thats human nature.
Nobody does anything until it is too late.
-Michael Crichton

Slide 75

Make a change. Stop textile wastage

before it is too late. And on behalf of
my group, I thank you for your
attention.