The Star donating textile waste for innovative recycling program

By Matt Lennon
November 11, 2021

Old staff uniforms, linen, towels and other textiles will be donated by The Star Entertainment Group to a new textile recovery operation launching in Queensland next year in an effort to reduce the amount of material going to landfill.

The company has announced its support for a new clean technology business known as BlockTexx which will next year launch what it says is Australia’s first textile recycling facility, to be located in the Queensland suburb of Logan, on Brisbane’s south side.

The facility has been developed to address an alarmingly high level of textile waste which is going into landfill around Australia. Australia generated 74.1 million tonnes of textile waste in 2018-19, with the recovery and recycling rate being 60%, according to the 2020 National Waste Report from Blue Environment, prepared for the Australian Government’s Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.

Following a successful trial last year, The Star will provide an initial three tonnes of material to Blocktexx, with the opportunity to scale up as operations bed down and increase. Donated materials will be repurposed through a five-stage process which allows for the creation of new resources for other sectors including manufacturing, building and construction, agriculture, infrastructure and flexible fabrics.

Materials coming from the Star’s properties in Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sydney will be among the first to be put through the process.

The Star Entertainment Group CEO, Matt Bekier, said the company was eager to play a leading role in how the hospitality industry handles textile waste and to help pioneer and drive change in the sector.

“With sustainability firmly at the forefront of our operations, it was important for The Star to ensure that unwanted and obsolete material does not end up in landfill,” Bekier said.

“As such, we teamed with BlockTexx, who will help recycle and repurpose them into a variety of new products.”

Commercial operations at the new recycling centre will begin in 2022, providing new jobs to local residents and injecting AUD$43 million annually into the economy once at full capacity.