Northland charity op shops inundated with dumped clothes unfit for resale are involved in a region-wide trial that turns the garments into mattresses and insulation for families in need.

Sixteen op shops and organisations – mainly hospice shops in the Bay of Islands and Whangārei, and other op shops in Whangārei and Mangawhai – are involved in the six-month trial by Kaitāia-based Community Business and Environment Centre (Cbec).

The clothes are collected by Cbec’s Eco Solutions arm and sent to Textile Products, a textile waste processing company in Auckland, where they are sorted, shredded and turned into mattresses and insulation.

The transformed products are then returned to Cbec.

So far 120 mattresses have been made, which will be distributed to families in need or sold at cost.

The project came about after Cbec put a post on social media asking if op shops wanted to get involved.

Hospice Mid-Northland chief executive Cristina Ross answered the call and promptly got other branches on board.

Ross said charity op shops had increasingly become a “dumping ground” for clothes that couldn’t be sold.

“We get a lot that are marked, stained, torn, and not good for reselling,” she said.

“We recently got a big box of dirty underwear, and a big black bag full of clothing and rat poo.

“It’s an ongoing thing; it’s a national problem for a lot of charities.”

Now, instead of paying for skip bins or dropping items off at transfer stations, clothes are stripped of zips and buttons by volunteers, then put into large sheep-wool sacks, which Cbec collects every couple of weeks.

The move is saving Hospice Mid-Northland, based in Kerikeri, up to $300 a week.

“We’re filling about three sheep bags a week,” Ross said.

“It’s expensive to get rid of things these days so op shops have become a dumping ground unfortunately.

“We had to stop accepting clothing donations last week because we were so overwhelmed.

“It’s good to know they’re getting re-utilised ... rather than being dumped into landfill.”

Hospice Mid-Northland had to temporarily stop accepting clothing donations due to having too much stock. Photo / Jenny Ling

Cbec is a social enterprise that runs a range of business and environmental programmes in a bid to build sustainable local economies within Northland.

Cbec’s eco solutions manager Jo Shanks said the mattress project, done in partnership with Healthy Homes Tai Tokerau, received $150,000 in government funding for the first part of the trial, with Cbec funding the other half.

The clothing is sorted into three lots according to fabric type: 80% were mixed textiles used for mattresses, 10% were pure polyester used for insulation, and 10% were pure wool, cotton, and silk, used for erosion matting.

Whangārei Hospital is also on board, handing over disused “blue wrap” – polypropylene plastic sheeting used to wrap surgical instruments in operating rooms.

A Health NZ spokeswoman said the material accounts for about nine tonnes of waste annually.

“Through Cbec’s programme, we are pleased to divert approximately seven tonnes of this material from landfill annually,” she said.

Shanks said the blue wrap was made into good-quality plastic boards for bathrooms and kitchens for iwi housing in Northland.

Excess clothing was a “massive consumer problem,” she said.

The average charity op shop was getting rid of five 240-litre bags of clothes per week, she said.

“It’s raising awareness of how wasteful the textile industry is.

“Textiles is the largest-growing waste stream in the world.

“We need to button down in New Zealand and realise there is a downside to unrestrained consumerism and it’s Papatūānuku that’s paying the price.”

Shanks said she hoped the zero-waste project could be rolled out across New Zealand in the future.

Hospice Mid-Northland and Cbec are looking for volunteers to help sort the clothing.

If you can help, email [email protected] or visit www.cbec.co.nz.

Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues.