Ep. 53: BlockTexx is ‘shovel ready’ to build textile recycling plant Ankit Podcast

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Ep. 53: BlockTexx is ‘shovel ready’ to build textile recycling plant

In this episode, Ross talks about the chemical recycling process that he and Jones have developed, how the Covid-19 pandemic has allowed them to further optimise their technology and model, and how the team hopes to have a commercial plant up and running by the end of the year.

Jessica Owen
Jessica, hello. My name is Jessica Owen, and I am the Deputy digital editor at WTiN, and this is the WTiN podcast. Over the next few weeks, I'll be talking to organizations about the topic of textile recycling. This is one of the most important solutions to the industry's waste and sustainability problems. So tune in to learn about new industry initiatives to create circular fashion upcoming textile recovery technologies. How best to communicate sustainability to consumers and much more. This week, I am joined by Graham Ross, who is the co founder of the textile recovery technology company blocktex. Graham tells me about the chemical recycling process that he and his co founder Adrian Jones, have developed, how the industry needs to start taking action instead of just analyzing and talking about sustainability and how he hopes to have a commercial plant up and running by the end of the year.

Hello Graham, and welcome to the WTiN podcast. And Happy New Year. How are you?

Graham Ross
Hi, Jess, Happy New Year to you. I'm very well. It's been a, it's been a challenging 2020 and we're looking forward to a slightly more happier and a more fruitful 2021.

Jessica Owen
Yeah, fingers crossed. But, I mean, I understand that you're looking at the ocean right now, so at least you've got a nice setting to be in whilst this all unfolds. Yes,

Graham Ross
where I am, country in the world, currently in the world is that it's daylight saving, and there's still a couple hours of daylight. And once I finish this enjoyable conversation, I think I will go and hit the surf. Oh,

Jessica Owen
wow, that is a nice way to end your day, isn't it? I can't do that. Unfortunately, it's a nice walk in the snow at the moment, pretty much, but that's equally quite enchanting. So there we go, absolutely, absolutely. So I've asked you on the show today then, because you are one of the co founders of blocktex. So do you mind just sort of firstly telling me about the company and what you do exactly? Yeah, sure.

Graham Ross
So yeah, as you said, I'm one of the co founders myself and my business partner, Adrian Jones, we are early stage chemical recycling company. What that means is we focus on the resource recovery of textile from fabric. So we we both have a background in the fashion textile industry, and we've fundamentally believed that whilst there was we all acknowledge there's a large amount of textile waste, and there is a challenge with dealing with that. We needed to come up with sort of 21st century technologies to overcome the challenge and look at the point of recovering those value, the value that's left in those fabrics that often just get thrown off into landfill. And so over the last few years, we've spent a lot of time in R and D developing a process that is focused on polyester and cotton materials. We're able to separate the cotton and the polyester from the blended fabric and then manufacture them back into raw materials for reuse, right?

Jessica Owen
Okay, interesting. I mean, I'll ask you more about that in a minute. But I mean, firstly, you said you founded it with your colleague, Adrian, and you both have experience in the textile industry. Then, so, I mean, what experience is that? And how did you two get to know each other?

Graham Ross
So Adrian is a 35 year veteran of the industry. He's formerly from the UK. He started in Marks and Spencer, and then found himself migrating to Australia to run to be CEO of several retail fashion brands. My background is less, less from a time point of view, but, but I came in focused on sustainability. I'm a I'm a triathlete and marathon runner, and my entry point was where I would finish a race, and I would get a free T shirt that would say, you complete the race. But every t shirt I received felt really bad didn't fit properly, and if you wore it a couple of times, it smelled like it'd been sort of, you know, left out your park bench for a week. And so it didn't make sense to me. So I did a bit of research into what these, you know, what my my shirts were made of, and I was really shocked by the impact that my small wardrobe had on the planet. And so I decided that there was an opportunity, a business opportunity, but also an opportunity to have an environmental impact on the planet. And over a period of years, I created some sustainable fabrics and then launched a sportswear and activewear brand. And over the period of time, I got a deeper understanding of the Textile Supply Chain and the challenges that the industry faced. And. Um, and I saw the opportunity in textile waste and recovery of those fibers. And I was lucky to meet Adrian, and he had the same sort of thoughts. And from there, block text was born.

Jessica Owen
Okay, so I mean, what was the final straw? Then that made you break away. Was it that meeting with Adrian where you just thought, hey, this is actually possible if we want to do this. What was great

Graham Ross
is that we both have run companies. We're a little bit older than than the average person, so there's a lot of experience. He came with a lot of knowledge from within the industry, and I came from a perspective as a I've been an entrepreneur most of my life, and I had a lot of questions, and he had a lot of answers. But also between us, we had a real clear vision as to where the opportunity was, and whilst there is many, there's we're going to need many solutions to deal with the challenge of textile waste. We saw the opportunity for us to find a particular solution, and also we knew that we could find the necessary technical support here in Australia to help us realize that sort of that concept.

Jessica Owen
So this technology, then you've developed, I think it's called soft or it's in capitals, like s, O, F, T, fiber separation technology. So how does this work? Then, exactly you said, it's mainly sort of aimed at polyester and cotton.

Graham Ross
In the early stages, we did some work in polyester wool separation, and that was Sep. That was that gave us a lot of knowledge. We also tried trial mechanical recycling as well. In Australia, there's no ability to spin fibers at a commercial scale. And so whilst we could, you know, we could get, you know, mechanically recycled back to a to a sort of a fluff to spin, we would have to export it from the country. So it didn't make any sense. The wool, polyester separation process was, was, was gave us a lot of it validated our initial hypothesis, but also gave us some some leanings to understand, not only the technical point of view, but from where Adrian I were coming from was a commercial perspective, and polyester and cotton blended fabric, so that, you know, the major part of our fabric supply chain. So that made sense to go chasing polyester cotton. But equally, if you could recover them back into their raw materials that had great use, back into the textile industry, but also, importantly, into many other industries. So the opportunity to take a waste and have a sustainable impact onto other industries was really attractive to us at that stage, when we first started looking at technologies, there were a couple of other processes around the world, and at that stage, they were either sacrificing one or the other, sacrificing the cotton to get to the polyester, or sacrificing the polyester to get to the cotton. We took the perspective is, if we could develop a process that should recover both materials, so therefore we would have a zero waste process, and that was really important to us. It didn't make any sense to kind of create, you know, save one waste and create another waste. And so over a period of time, working with a university here in Australia, we were able to success, successfully separate cotton and polyester fabric lab scale over a period of trials, we then moved that to a small pilot plant, which we've been operating for over 12 months. And then we're now, we're now ready to scale into a commercial scale facility,

Jessica Owen
wow. Well, so you're talking just over a period of a few years then that you've managed to get to this stage. Yes, yeah,

Graham Ross
it's been we're very urgent individuals, Adrian and I, but equally, we found the right amount of technical expertise to allow us to get to each stage of development and And equally, we were able to pull a really strong team around us to accelerate things forward. And then I think that also, combined with the fact that is such a demand in this country to solve the textile waste problem. But equally, there's a demand this country for high quality recycled materials.

Jessica Owen
Okay, right. What's the process? Then? I mean, firstly, where do you get the waste from? And what is the chemical sort of process? How is it separated? So

Graham Ross
textile waste is is everywhere, so you can take it from a commercial perspective, so hotels, laundry, hospitals, that sort of stuff, or from pre consumer, so off cuts from textile mills or post consumer, from the stuff that, obviously charities can't sell or is destined to go to landfill. We we prioritize those streams, depending on the clients. We want to work with the quality of that feedstock and and obviously the volumes of that feedstock. So we've got. Good partners here in this country. But also, equally, I'm sure, like many other companies in our position, there's, there's plenty of people wanting to send us textile waste. So there's no challenge from getting that from that perspective, as I said, we've developed a patent pending process. It is a chemical separation process. So we do use chemicals. We have a certain amount of conditions that we apply to the material, and effectively, after that initial process happens, the cotton unlocks itself from the polyester. We our process doesn't do any damage to the polyester, and it simply is then melted, extruded and turned into pellets for reuse. And then our cotton breaks down into a cellulose powder. And after washing process to make sure we recovered all the cellulose, it is then sold as a slurry, or can be freeze dry and and so that. So from a simple, you know, household bed sheet that we all own, we create two high value recycle products, our pet pellets and cellulose powder, right?

Jessica Owen
Okay, gosh, that sounds interesting. How long does the process take? Then? Is it quite expensive or or is it relatively feasible? It's

Graham Ross
very feasible. We're very we looked at this from the perspective that we needed to create an environmentally sustainable process, but equally, it needed to be commercial venture. And so we we've our processes is, is achieved both, and we can process a ton of textile fibers in an hour, so it's highly efficient. And from that process, we have a recovery rate of around 95% so it's pretty much one for one, yeah, definitely.

Jessica Owen
And what about colors? Then? Is that an issue? Because I'm imagining you must have all sorts of colors come through. And when I think of textile recycling, I imagine like white pellets or something at the end. So how do you sort of overcome that? Yeah, well,

Graham Ross
part of that, part of that work is done in the sortation. So there is, there is a process, other process that will remove the dyes from from the fibers. In the process we we've decided not to go down that route at this stage, because we have a couple things. One is, first and foremost, divert textile waste away from landfill. Secondly, recover that back into raw materials. And thirdly, make those raw materials available into markets that have a high demand for that. And so we can process white sheets or white linen back into white pellets. That is easy, but if we have a colored section, we have clients who operate in who require industrial fibers. And so our process, if it comes out and it's a whole bunch of green pellets, we can over dye that during the melt extrusion process. Or, equally, it doesn't matter to our demand partners, because they're doing it within their own process. And so we're able to effectively pull levers depending on what the demand is. And so if we've got high demand for white pellets, well we can process or prioritize the process of white linen. But equally, if we've got a demand for, you know, we don't care what color it is, well then we can probably start to look more into that post consumer textile waste area.

Jessica Owen
So this technology, then you said you've been running at a pilot scale for the last 12 months. Have you been able to sort of work with anyone? Then at this point, are people currently using what you're creating?

Graham Ross
So we've we spent the 12 months optimizing our process, developing our engineering plans for our facility, but also working with a variety of potential clients across the textile spectrum, so obviously, fashion brands, workwear companies and commercial, commercial laundries, that sort of those sorts of companies. It gave us an opportunity to trial our process across different blend percentages, 5050, or 8020, or 2080 to ensure that our process works across that but equally, it gave us opportunity to trial the different types of feedstock that may have come from different conditions. And so it gave us an understanding of what does that mean through our process, and what does that mean for us to get that back to a virgin, quality raw material? We've developed a lot of knowledge in that space. We've worked with international brands, fashion brands from across the world, and we also work with domestic fashion brands. That's been good for. The point of view of, you know, showing the technology works with it, with their with their product. We've had some raw materials go back into textile fiber mills and go back into other companies for indoor trials. Locally, we did a project with hotel chain where we took their unwanted linen and we obviously are able to divert their way from landfill and give them an understanding of how much CO two emissions they've abated by recycling and not sending to landfill, and a bunch of other data. And then, as part of that small project, we turned those unwanted linen into coat hangers so they can be reused back into the hotel. So it showed how they could close the loop effectively within their own hotel chain, which was the guess is the industry's always got this focus on going fiber to fiber, and that's that's great as well. But equally, when you start to look into businesses who want to be more sustainable, getting their their old clothing back into some sort of form of polyester product. It meets their emissions reduction targets. It it diverts landfill, but also gives them a great story to tell to their customers, which is, which is, really, is really attractive to brands at this stage,

Jessica Owen
yeah, definitely. I mean, I mean, waste is waste. At the end of the day, if you can somehow repurpose it, it doesn't, I'm assuming it doesn't matter too much what that purpose is for, really. And so you mentioned there that there's a challenge to try and get it back to a virgin quality, so everything you make, then it is the same quality, so people don't need to worry about that side of things. 

Graham Ross
No, of course, that's part of our highly efficient process that doesn't damage the feedstock. But equally, you know, we've got some knowledge in regards to if we have, if we take feedstock that has maybe had some damage before it got to us, you know, through UV light, or through excessive washing, or just, you know, over where we have some understandings as to what needs to happen to get that back in. And these are the sorts of like our company and and I guess our competitors in this space, although we don't like to refer them as competitors, because we're all, we're all on the same side here. We're all fighting the good fight to to to sort of, to retune the industry. We're all at the cutting edge of technology and development, and so there is a lot of learnings in regards to this as we go along. And I think we're all we're all getting to the stage of getting those really strong learnings and adapting that into our processes that that are getting consistency, good quality. And it's something that, without that, you don't have a business, it's pretty you know, if you can separate a fiber and you can't use it again, well, then that that's not a process. That's just, that's an alternative, that's a, you know, it's a waste of time and and so we've been, we've spent a lot of time making sure that we can guarantee our quality, and that's part of something, I mean, we came at this from a commercial perspective, and so we knew that, you know, was that was one of the real key metrics we had to meet. And we spent a lot of time working with both internal scientists, but also external scientists as well, to make sure that we were completely validating and across what's going on. Across what's going on, but also looking at how each sectors of that feedstock, you know what's happening to that before it gets to us, and understanding the parameters of that. And so because you want to be able to get the beauty of this process is the efficiency. If we can turn around a ton an hour, that's fantastic. You want to make sure that you're getting the high quality at the start to deliver that high quality at the end. And so the goal for us as a company, once we launch a commercial facility and get that up and running and showcase the world, is to look for licensing partners around the world and deliver effectively, a turnkey solution, the soft process, turnkey solution to partners, whether that's into supply, partners who have a large amount of textile waste, or equally, into demand, those companies who are looking for high quality recycled materials to go back into their other supply chain, whether that's in the building industry, the pharmaceuticals industry, the commercial industry, the food industry, or the other, you know, the packaging industry,

Jessica Owen
right? Okay, you just mentioned that you're hoping to get this commercial plant up and running. What's the time scale for that? Then, is this, this year's plan, or is it next year's plan? 

Graham Ross
Or we're one of the great COVID 19 stories, this time last year, in 2020 we were, we were very close to closing our Series A raise to to fund the building of our commercial scale plant. We. We're very excited potential investors, mainly from overseas. Unfortunately, COVID sort of put a stop to that, and everybody went back to sort of their their own own business. We've recently gone back into the market late last year, and we've currently raised 75% of our round. So we're, we need, we're looking to close the round at the moment, so keen to talk to anybody who might be interested in what, in what we've developed and our future plans. If we can close that round in the next sort of this quarter, we should be up and running by the end of the year, early next year,

Jessica Owen
right? Well, that's such a good achievement. I mean, as you say, this climate, everyone's just gone back to doing what they do best, prioritizing just trying to stay afloat. So the fact that you've even got 75% at this stage is really impressive. I mean, congratulations.

Graham Ross
Yeah, thanks. If anybody's ever tried to raise money, it's hard work, and it's hard work during a pandemic, but equally, during the pandemic, we had a huge opportunity to work on our internal business, and we did that. We went back and did a lot more R and D, some early some more product development, more conversations with their supply and demand partners. So we effectively, the we have been able to fully optimize our own business model ahead of the plant being up and running. So that's going to really accelerate the growth of the company over the next five years.

Jessica Owen
Well, fingers crossed for you. I'd love to see some of this technology actually sort of, you know, scale up in and maybe even see some clothes on the shelves that are made from it. That'd be very cool.

Graham Ross
Yeah, exactly. I think the, I think the we all acknowledge that there's a there's a challenge for us as an industry, but there's also a huge opportunity. And I guess this is the thing that's possibly not being adapted by the industry. You know this, there's been several reports in regards to how much investment comes from the fashion textile industry, and it's it's significantly lower than other industries such as, you know, software or pharmaceuticals and that sort of stuff. But the value of supporting early stage companies like ourselves, like warn again in the UK, like Titan Biosciences in the US, is that getting us into commercial scale not only proves out the business model, it also shows pathways for how other supply partners can get involved. Demand partners get involved. It starts to accelerate the retooling of the industry. There's already demand from customers in regards to sustainable clothing, recycled clothing. So the markets already there. It's well established what companies like us, like we lack that capital investment to get us to that scale. And from there, the businesses should be able to fund themselves. And I think, you know, there's, there's been a high priority on chasing plastic bottles when the most amount of polyester manufactured goes into clothing.

Jessica Owen
So I mean looking at the industry then. So from what I understand, there are many ways in which companies try to be, or say they are sort of environmentally sustainable. So some people might focus on just making long lasting quality garments, or, you know, trying to use less energy or water. In your opinion, then, is recycling the best solution and the best thing that companies can do. 

Graham Ross
I think it gives the most bang for its buck on a kind of commercial scale, because you get the benefits of diverting from landfill, which is the most important thing. So obviously, garments, you know, at end of life, they should go into a second, second use. So get it, get them into charity shops, getting the second hand dealers, get it being used. But where that challenge happens with that. That's great from a second life, but our perspective has always been what happens with the third, fourth and fifth life of garments. So if they get used once, and then they end up in landfill, have we actually? Have we actually, you know, what's been our impact? Whereas, if you've got a technology that can take that love to death t shirt that can't be resold, and break that back into raw materials that can then be spun back into fibers, so then you're not producing the verb and Virgin fibers. Well, then that makes complete sense. And then, then the most important thing to happen after it's been made back into a garment is that when it's at the when it's been loved to death again, getting that back into that that process, and getting those, getting those fibers recovered, and obviously there's, you know, there is some technical challenges, but I'm talking at a high level from that perspective. But that's so resource recovery companies can make sure that you continue those resources to being reused and reused. Reuse and and, yes, there'll be a time where you can't be, you might not be getting at the top high value use, but it can come down into secondary, third and fourth use. And so therefore, you've got impact all the way down on the supply chain. I think it's also important that we've got a lot of, we've got development in, you know, man made cellulosics, which is fantastic that that's made. It made a difference with, you know, we've got advancement in cotton. We thinking about what we're going to do with polyester, and there is polyester recycling, but that's kind of at the front end of the supply chain, whereas end of use solution not only locks off the end of the Textile Supply Chain, but it's also the beginning of the Textile Supply Chain, so it closed the loop. But then equally, if you've got a solution, you know, if you've got a brand who's got a lot of textile waste, and they've got no solution except send it to landfill. I mean, there isn't too many other solutions when you're talking at large scale, but if they can be getting that in there, then they can start to retool their entire supply chain. They start thinking about their design. So they're designing and working with recycled materials. They also look at the design. So what, what are the hold ups to getting into the process? You know, do you need to remove buttons and zippers? And so if a process can work on polyester and cotton, don't make your garment with nylon buttons. So it can all go and so you start to limit the the barriers to getting a really efficient supply chain. And then, then, if you can start having conversations with companies such as ours who have got a deep understanding of of what happens to a garment at the end of life, and we can start feeding that back into, you know, fiber manufacturers and that sort of stuff. So I think resource recovery Technologies has can have a huge influence on the supply chain, not only at the end of it, but also at the beginning of it. And then other than other players can play around with that and come into that. And I guess you start to also refine your sortation. So there'll be sortation to go in for Second Second Life. But then you start to refine that. You know, maybe companies like block text takes a certain type of textile where, whereas another company may take another different type of textile, and all those, those kinds of things start to start to retool and drive the industry forward, and I think we can start also start looking at the textile flows around the world and whether we could be a bit more efficient in regards to looking after our own textile waste within our own country borders.

Jessica Owen
So interesting. So in a ideal world that is sustainable? Are we looking at one then that there's no need for Virgin fiber manufacturers and it'll be a switch to recycled fiber manufacturers like yourselves. Is that sort of what you imagine a circular sort of economy to look like?

Graham Ross
I don't think we'll ever be 100% recycled, because hopefully we've got, you know, new fiber development. You know, we've got algae coming in. You've got, we've got look at other other forms of plant based fibers coming in. So they'll be raw based. And I guess if they're compostable, well then they're they're being recycled that way. I guess what we've got to look at is at the moment, you know, most of our clothing has polyester in it, and so and at the moment, our solution to that is to send it to landfill, where it degrades and breaks down. So I see us as that interim step to get that polyester out of landfill and get that back into the supply chain. So therefore you're reducing the raw material manufacturing. And as we do that, we can start looking at, you know, these, these new fibers coming on the market, whether they need to be blended with the recycled material at this stage, as they kind of transition, I don't think we can't go all of them. It's such a large industry, and where there's a lot of lot of tons of material manufactured each day, and there's a lot of livelihoods that depend on this. And so from our point of view, we've always looked at block text to be a solution to as a value add into the supply chain, not a not a yes or no, because it will take time to transition. But while we all talk about meeting these solutions, what these solutions need is investment to get them to commercial scale, which will then help frame, not only the industry's perspective as to where the value is, but also governments, governments perspective and also start to drive consumer influence. Because, you know, consumers don't want to send their clothing to landfill, and they can't give their, you know, their love to death t shirt to a charity, and that, that's something we hear all the time. It's, it's a complete frustration from the consumer. And what you're going to find is consumers. Well, anecdotally, I hear consumers avoiding brands because they don't have a solution for their end of life clothing. Well. Well,

Jessica Owen
that was a question I wanted to ask you. Because, I mean, I speak to quite a few people, and I often ask them, Where is the demand coming from? Is it the company, or is it the consumer? And there are very mixed opinions, and I think it also depends on the country in which you you're asking as well. So I mean, do you genuinely believe that that consumers want sustainability, or what are the challenges around this? Because before we were coming, came on air, we were talking about how that there is a circular there is conversation nowadays about sustainability, but it feels like there's very little action.

Graham Ross
Yeah, I think I said circular economy is a circular conversation where everybody keeps acknowledging we need to do more, but without doing more, except more talking about it. Sustainability has certainly crept up in the last few few years, and it's in its used well in some areas, and it's used as a marketing tool in other areas. What I think from a consumer's point of view, I think this is an expectation, like, they, there's a couple things, you know, and I was one, like, like, a few years ago, I didn't know the impact that my clothing had on the planet, and I don't buy a lot of clothes, but it was pretty easy to calculate how much water I used and how much CO two emissions my little wardrobe had, and And the fact that I, you know, if my clothes had was torn or stained, I would just throw it in the, you know, the waste bin and not think about it. Or I would go and donate it to the charity, thinking that that it would go to a new home. But, you know, the volumes going to charities these days, they can't, they can't place them into Second Life. They're just the volumes are too high. So I think consumers, whilst there's obviously people who are saying, I only buy from this brand, I think consumers just have an expectation from any brand, whether you're a clothing brand or whether you're a manufacturer of furniture, they have an expectation that you have a plan for the end of life of your clothing, and you also have a plan to reduce your impact on the environment. And I think the pandemic has kind of made us all look at kind of not only how we interact on the planet, but equally those people who interact with us. And I just think brands, it's not about waiting for somebody to tell you to tell you to do it. Brand should be doing it. And if you're not, if you're not embracing or not setting targets and starting to achieve those targets, then you know, I think you will find yourself behind, behind the butt, because there is new brands or up and coming brands who are already well down the track. And I think this is, I think there's any debate whether clothing has an environmental impact, but there's an opportunity to reduce that impact and and, you know, and we hear conversations like, you know, I'm not having a dig at the brands. Everybody's trying to turn their boat around or do their things, but equally, without a resource recovery solution, then we're kind of fighting it with one hand tied behind our backs.

Jessica Owen
What is stopping companies then from trying to be more sustainable Is it, is it down to money at the end of the day? And, you know, trying to support, I mean, brands like the big ones in the UK, Top Shop and that they support 1000s of families and people. And I guess it's quite a risky, I don't know, yeah,

Graham Ross
I think it comes down to ownership. So, like, if you work with a we work with a workwear company. If they're selling a workwear company sells their, you know, their product into a bank or or an airline. Like, they've got a duty to securely just destroy, destroy those, those workwear uniforms, because you kind of can't have a pilot's uniform wandering around. So they have the ownership. Whereas if a brand, brand, a sells me a t shirt, I walk out of that that store, then I have ownership of that T shirt. And so there's been industries working in textiles who are just they've just always had the ownership, and we're used to that, whereas I guess consumer facing brands don't necessarily have the ownership. And, you know, whilst there is, yes, there's certainly take back schemes coming on. But the opportunities to scale those are massive. But equally, you can't scale those take back schemes if you've got nowhere else to send it. So we kind of come back to that roadblock, which is, which is why we came up with block text,

Jessica Owen
in your opinion, then, I mean, we've got so there are companies such as yours that are looking at um textile recycling, and there are companies that are trying to look at biodegradable materials and so on. Um, what do you think is needed to get to a circular economy? I know that's quite a big question, but what do you reckon, 

Graham Ross
I guess, I guess action. I would always come back to action. We can, we can all talk about what needs to be done, but things, things change as you get started, and especially when you're working with with new, innovative technology. It doesn't have to be software. Have shown us, it doesn't have to be 100% right, like we all get out. You. Will pick up your new iPhone, and then all sudden, there's an update. And there continues to be updates getting into the market and getting it into the supply chain, allows all of us to look at things and other it influences our own business, but equally allows these companies to get to get real world trials and operation and of course, things you know may break or go a little bit wrong, but at least you're further down the track than you would have by not starting. And so I think action is really important. And off action, then you can start to form conversation. So, you know, there's certainly in this country, there is a conversation about, you know, doing a plan about how much textile waste we have and the flows and all that sort of stuff. And meanwhile, you know, there's about a million tons going into landfill each year. We already know that. So, you know, we can do those, those kind of, those projects to analyze stuff while we're actually starting to solve the problem. Because every year we hold back on that problem. You know, there's 120 billion garments manufactured around the world, and so we're kind of getting behind the eight ball that if, even if there was unlimited investment into recycling companies, we couldn't, we can't stem back the tsunami of textile waste. So the longer we every year we leave it leave starting really impacts us going forward. And, you know, meanwhile, this polyester degrading in in landfill. And so always, I would, always come back to action.

Jessica Owen
Yeah, that's it, exactly right, what you say. I mean, for example, I mean, I always see so many statistics and market reports on textile waste and how much is going to landfill, and there are only so many articles, for example, you can write about that, and people are shocked in Italy, and then it's just sort of lost, and that's it. It's just sort of never ending. It's like waiting, as you say, for the action and for it to finally, sort of, you know, snowball into something that is more sustainable. 

Graham Ross
Yeah, that's right. And I think any level of positivity in towards, you know, landfill diversion and resource recovery is is something and so, you know, we didn't, we didn't fly to the moon. We was incremental. So this is what we need to do. And I think we've forgotten that. We've, we've been, long been able to pump out large volumes of textiles and, you know, and employ a lot of people around the world, and that's been a fantastic impact into many countries. But we kind of got stuck in this way of working without thinking about, well, if we've got all this waste, what are we going to do about it? And then it was always like, Oh, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. But we're kind of here now, and and, and the longer we leave it, then we just, we just, we're going to be empowered. And the conversation, as you said, we've already know that there's a lot of textile waste, that's a given, but we should be focused on what's the solution and and there is many solutions, not saying everything has to be 100% chemical recycling, but you've got to start with with many of these. And I guess we've seen the second hand clothing market, not just the export, but you know, where you've got companies who are actively looking for either, you know, post post consumer or post industrial. Getting that reused is, obviously there's been a great second hand market, well advanced in India, and that will further develop as textile recycling comes into that. They will add more value to that. We're probably being a bit too reliant on exporting clothes away from our own domestic countries into other countries, and then combine that with where fast fashion is delivering lower or long, or not lasting as long clothing, so the reuse value is diminished. And so those markets, and I think we've now found, due to the pandemic, those markets are closed, and I'd be very surprised if they got back to where they weren't worth so now we've got even greater impact, because they're not actually going to somewhere else. So, but, you know, I'm really positive about the opportunity here. We as an industry, have an opportunity, and there's a really clever people in the world who are coming out some really unique solutions. What I think we're not doing is doing it quick enough,

Jessica Owen
right? Okay, well, I mean, we've only got a couple more questions, if that's all right, and the first one I wanted to ask you is, we're talking here about action, and something's got to change for people to actually act. So I was just wondering, do you reckon that governments need to now get get involved, and somehow, you know, put in legislation to make sure that this happens. 

Graham Ross
Government legislation does a couple of things. It sends a clear directive to the market in regards to they have to you. Fix some stuff up. It also sends a really good message to investors that there is a there is a secure market here. If there's government mandates, government also can be on both sides. They can be a supplier and a demand partner for recycled products. So they can actually play a strong part, and often in countries, governments are one of the largest procurement companies. I think it's a double edged sword. Governments have been reluctant to certainly, I could probably talk about Australia. In Australia, textile waste isn't identified as a priority waste stream. We've we're still focused on plastic and glass and other things that we were, we used to export, and now we've got to kind of deal with that, but we've been we've known this for, you know, a long time. It's not like it's a it's a new challenge. We're hoping that textile waste will be the next cab off the rank, but governments are slow to do that. I think the way to great to get better acceleration is if for industry to take the mantle and start to drive this, and as they start to get this, you know, they can then start to blend, to collaborate with the government. Governments often reluctant to kind of come in and say, You must do things. They would prefer to collaborate with industry. And I think the fashion textile industry. I know they are collaborating with governments around the world, but, you know, they can also pick up the stick and drive this a lot harder. In regards to the end of life clothing, I think that's incredibly important. We're obviously seeing advancement in mandating chemical uses and dyes and, you know, making sure that there's not effects into water streams, that sort of stuff. But I would make a call out to my government in this country is to is that you've got an innovative technology dealing with a waste stream that hasn't been tackled here in this country. So there's a huge opportunity. It's instant for what, every kilo, any ton of textiles we recycle in this country will be one ton more than we did in the last 10 years. So there's a huge opportunity here, but also it has a strong in economic impact onto into a region, the good businesses they put, they employ a lot of people, and they have impact into other industries and and then you start to drive into, you know, with some great charitable partners. And so, you know, the charities want to get high quality product to sell, but equally, they don't want to send their unsellable products to landfill. And so you start to support them. They've got some great sortation opportunities within there. And so you start to retool the way they do their business, and start to think about, maybe you don't export all your clothing away. Maybe you work with a resource recovery company to then drive some value back into your charitable organization. 

Jessica Owen
Well, it sounds like you've got a very clear idea of what needs to happen. So fingers crossed. All of this, you know, does sort of fall into place. So finally, then, I mean, we spoke earlier that you're trying to get this commercial plant up and running and some more funding. Is that the focus then for now? Or do you have any more plans in the pipeline? 

Graham Ross
No closing the funding round and getting our plant operational is the sole focus. Kind of, I can't talk about action and not not be driving that. So we've, we've well and truly had enough conversations about what the problem is and what our solution is and where we see the opportunity, not only for our country, but also for global strategic partners, we've had the opportunity to be an alumni of the fashion for good accelerator program and also the plug and play accelerator program last year That gave us a lot of exposure, also gave us a lot of potential partners, but those potential partners can't work with us, you know, because we haven't got a plan up and running. And so we're kind of getting the point where we keep talking about the art of the possible without actually delivering and without we need physical we need physical plant. You know, I can't do the separation in my bathtub, so I actually have to build a commercial staff facility. But once it's there, then you start to showcase, you de risk, the the opportunity. You showcase the technology to potential partners. You also showcase the potential in the vision that that agent and I have and and that's when you start to get real buy in from governments, from from industry and from consumers, because they can physically see that. And I appreciate, I appreciate that. And so from our point of view, we've been, as they say in Australia, we've been shovel ready since the last of the start of last year, and the pandemic kind of stood in our road for a few months, but we're now back and ready to go. And you know, we've already got a team in place. I've got supply partners, I've got demand partners, I've got the kind of perfect scenario of all the play, all the pieces in place, but the plant hasn't been built yet, 

Jessica Owen
right?  Well, I mean, I love that phrase, shove already. I've. Very rarely hear it, but I think that is all we've got time for, unfortunately, today. But I mean, good luck with this, and you must let me know when it is up and running, because I'd be really interested to hear that. But yeah, thank you very much for coming on the show today. It's been really insightful to hear about everything you're doing and the ideas you have for the industry. Thanks.

Graham Ross
Jess, I've really enjoyed the time.