The fashion industry produces 100 billion garments a year — yet 30% of those are never even sold, contributing to 360 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually — the equivalent of 50 million cars on the road for a year.
That’s the reality of fast fashion’s waste crisis — and it’s why circularity is so important.
At Underwear for Humanity, circularity is woven into everything we do. Winning the Circularity Award at the Sustainability Tracker Impact Awards has reminded us just how vital this work is.
Here’s how we’re building a circular model — one that designs out waste, extends product life, and keeps resources in use for as long as possible.
1. Australia’s First Underwear Recycling Program
Underwear is one of the most challenging items to recycle. It’s intimate, often worn out, and traditionally destined for landfill. So, when we realised there was no existing recycling solution for undies, we built one ourselves.
Our Underwear Recycling Program is the first of its kind in Australia. It accepts underwear from any brand — because we knew to have the level of impact we wanted we needed to accept big brands.
✅ Over 30,000 items have been recycled so far.
✅ Bras in good condition are donated to Support the Girls for women in crisis.
✅ Worn-out undies are sanitised, shipped to India, and downcycled into insulation via a Sedex-certified ethical facility.
We would love to do more processing locally, but the reality is we are not currently a manufacturing country and there are limits for the end product such as insulation. .
2. Innovation in Materials: Recycled Elastic
Elastic is essential in underwear — but it’s traditionally made from virgin fossil fuels. When we couldn’t find a recycled elastic option, we developed our own.
✅ This delayed our launch by 6 months, but we refused to compromise.
✅ Our recycled elastic is now used across our entire range, reducing our reliance on virgin petroleum-based materials.
3. Reducing Plastic Waste with Reusable Shipping Bags
The fashion industry uses billions of single-use plastic bags each year to ship garments. We knew this had to change.
Instead of following the industry norm, we developed our own reusable shipping bags — designed to be repurposed again and again.
✅ This small change has eliminated thousands of plastic bags from our supply chain.
4. Designing for Longevity & Less Waste
Our designs aren’t just made to last — they’re made to reduce waste from the start.
✅ Our seamfree bras are produced as a tube, meaning fewer off-cuts during production.
✅ The stretch and adaptability of the design allows us to reduce the number of SKUs we carry, which means less unsold stock and fewer markdowns.
✅ Our waist elastic on our organic cotton range has a logo that has a repeating pattern, rather than a centred logo on the waist. This drastically reduces material waste in production.
5. Thinking Beyond Recycling: The Future of Circularity
Recycling alone isn’t the solution — we need to slow fashion down and reduce overproduction. That’s why we focus on designing better products that last longer and reduce the need for excessive consumption.
Our future goals include:
✅ Once we are big enough and can reach minimums we will use regenerative agriculture cotton.
✅ Investing in textile-to-textile recycling innovations to create closed-loop systems.
We believe circular fashion must go beyond recycling — it must be restorative.
Why This Award Matters
Winning the Circularity Award at the Sustainability Tracker Impact Awards is an incredible honour — not just for our team, but for the belief that small businesses can lead big change.
Circularity is hard — but it’s possible.
We’re proud to be proving that businesses, no matter their size, can be powerful drivers of sustainability.
Thank you for believing in our mission and supporting our journey.
