Those who are frequent visitors to UpSew, will know I have been preoccupied by the volume of textile waste in Charity Shops… especially so after the Fashion Revolution Talk last April where the statistics really got me… were we ever going to get out of this downward spiral. A lot of textiles donated do not get sold, some of it is soiled, ripped, bad quality, or just donated at the wrong time of year. Currently between 60 to 80% of donations will go unsold – and they are exported for ‘textile recycling’ – and as a lot of these textiles cannot be recycled (if not resold/reworn) then they are just dumped.

Since September 2025, I started a project with the St Vincent dePaul Galway to see if I can reuse these unwanted textiles. I go through their ‘recycle bags’ and take out as much good quality textiles as I can. The idea is to see if I can remake these into saleable garments and accesories.

These will be listed on instagram www.instagram.com/agusaris.ie and I will document the process on my blog here in ‘workroom notes’