Goal no. 9 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aims to build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation.

Click on the arrows to reveal more information about SDG9. You don’t need to remember everything you read – the main thing is to get an overview of this Goal.

Information and targets reproduced under the terms and conditions of United Nations websites. Copyright (2023). 

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Key vocabulary

Check that you know the meaning and the whole word family of these key words before you begin the Unit. (NOTE: there may be other versions of the word forms – these are the common forms in the context of SDG 9). Also notice some common collocations in bold in the ‘Why this goal? and ‘Targets’ sections above. Add any new words, word families or collocations that you would like to remember to your vocabulary book.

Introduction

In this unit you’ll learn about some innovative ways that the circular economy works, this time looking at the textile industry. You’ll read about how old clothes can be repurposed and hear about an app that encourages young people to trade second-hand clothes with each other, rather than throwing them away. You’ll learn about SDG9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. By design, all SDGs overlap with one another. Use the sentence below as a prompt to make a list of which ones might overlap with SDG9 when considering the impact of the fashion industry (see the Welcome page for a list of all the SDGs).

In your local context…

1. Are people employed as textile workers? If yes, what are the working conditions like?
2. Is textile waste shipped to your country to be dealt with? If yes, what is your view on this?
3. ‘Fast fashion’ is a term that refers to cheap clothing produced quickly and sold in large quantities in order to respond to the latest fashion trends. Is fast fashion an option in your context? If yes, have you thought much about the environmental impact of consuming goods in this way?

Data Visualisation – Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

The title of the infographic states the aims of SDG9, and the main body summarises the SDG9 section of the Sustainable Development Goals report 2023, showing progress (or lack of progress) towards the goal. Read the infographic and complete the tasks below. (Click here to see the infographic full screen).

Download the transcript here – Unit 3 Infographic

Reading – Circular fashion: turning old clothes into everything from new cotton to fake knees

Before you read – Vocabulary: waste in the textile industry

You saw in the infographic that one of the aims of SDG9 is to foster innovation. The reading examines innovative ways of taking old clothes and cotton waste and turning them into new products. Match these words that relate to using waste from the textile industry with the correct definition:

Skim read for main ideas & Read for detail

Make notes about the reading under each of the headings in the left-hand column. When you have finished download your notes to your own computer.

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Circular fashion: turning old clothes into everything from new cotton to fake knees

 

Australia has a fashion problem. More than 500,000 tonnes of clothing waste is sent to landfill each year. But a new way of recycling could redirect some of our unwanted textiles from polluting the environment, by repurposing cotton waste into anything from new clothes to prosthetic knees.

Developed by our team at Deakin University, where we work on designing materials and processes for a circular economy, this solution for recycling textiles involves dissolving cotton and regenerating it into brand-new cellulose – a complex, strong carbohydrate with many industrial uses.

The cost of clothes

Textile waste consumes nearly 5% of all landfill space, and 20% of all freshwater pollution is a result of textile treatment and dyeing. Growing cotton requires harmful pesticides and fertilisers, and textile-manufacturing plants release hazardous waste into the nearby land.

Synthetic dyes also come at a cost to the environment. The dyeing process involves a lot of water, and not all of it is efficiently cleaned before re-entering our environment.

Waste water from textile dyeing can affect the entire water ecosystem. This is because some dyes don’t ever degrade in water. Those that do degrade produce harmful by-products – sometimes carcinogenic.

Importantly, despite the energy and resources used in the production process, not all cotton produced makes it into our clothes. Around 23.6 million tonnes of cotton is produced each year, but the weight of stems, leaves and lint from the plant amounts to 18-65% of each bale of cotton.

From what is left, even more cotton fibre is lost in the process of spinning cotton buds into yarn because some fibres break during spinning. Some of this raw material waste can be used to make products such as soaps, animal feed or cotton seed oil, but the rest is thrown away.

Wasted raw cotton material aside, it can take nearly 2,700 litres of water to produce a single cotton T-shirt and more than 7,600 litres to make a pair of jeans.

It’s no wonder that we want greener clothes!

How we’re closing the cotton circle

To counter the fast-fashion industry, circular fashion is taking off. Textile waste can now be recycled into usable products.

Cotton fibres are almost purely comprised of cellulose and can therefore be turned into other cellulose-based products.

At Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials we have developed a chemical-based recycling process to produce high-quality, regenerated cellulose from cotton.

The regenerated cellulose can be used in many ways. It can be used in textile manufacturing again, in the production of cellophane and paper, insulation and filtration, or in biomedical applications such as drug delivery and tissue engineering.

Cotton waste has traditionally been recycled through a mechanical process that produces poorer quality recycled cotton. Only a small fraction of recycled cotton could be incorporated into new garments.

But our recycling process dissolves the cotton waste and regenerates it as cellulose. Even cotton blended fabrics, such as cotton-polyester blends, can be recycled in this process, so nothing goes to waste.

This regenerated cellulose has many different possible uses. It can be spun into a textile fibre similar to native cotton or used to make aerogels – synthetic, ultralight materials comprised of a network of micron-sized pores and nanoscale tunnels.

The aerogels produced from our recycling process can be moulded into a structure almost identical to cartilage in the joints of the body. We manipulate the size and distribution of tunnels to mould the aerogel within into synthetic cartilage with an ideal shape to replace damaged knee cartilage in arthritic patients.

While we haven’t used them in patients yet, we’ve found that the aerogels have a remarkable similarity to cartilage tissues when tested. They can replicate the type of lubrication mechanism used by cartilage in joints to protect against wear and damage.

Rescuing dyes

We can also shred cotton fabrics and mill them into coloured powders to dye new clothes. Since 2017, many Chinese factories that produced synthetic dyes for textiles were shut down following environmental inspections, highlighting the need for change in dyeing practices. We need new textile dyeing methods that save water, reduce pollutants, save energy and protect human health.

Our recycling process offers an environmentally friendly alternative. This process not only gives purpose to old clothing, but also eliminates much of the energy and water involved in the normal dyeing process.

We are rescuing denim and other cotton-based clothes from landfill to create cellulose fibres, aerogels and dyes from 100% of the waste.

Textile waste is a global challenge with significant environmental issues. We’ve created a recycling solution to tackle this pollution head-on.

 

NB This version of the article, with permission from the author, does not include the hyperlinks to supporting articles found in the original. Click the title for the full version of the text, published under a CC BY ND licence in The Conversation, which should be used for reference and sharing.

Speaking – Oral summary

Work with a partner:

1. Without looking at your notes, give an oral summary to your partner of the key things you remember from the text about taking old clothes and cotton waste and turning them into new products.
2. Tell your partner any new words you remember and give a definition. Add these new words to your vocabulary book.

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Vocabulary – Compound words

1. In Unit 2 you learned several compound adjectives. In the reading there are many compound, or two-part, words (compound nouns, compound adjectives and compound verbs). Read the sentences from the text and click on the compound word in each sentence:
2. Remember that compound words are defined by what they do, rather than what they contain. In each sentence, decide if the compound word you have identified is a compound noun, a compound adjective, or a compound verb.

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Pronunciation – Word stress in compound words

Practice

Play the audio here.

Listen to these sentences and notice the word stress in the compound word. You’ll hear the sentence first followed by just the compound word. Listen and repeat the compound word.

Compound noun:

• • • clothing is sent to landfill                   0o

Compound adjectives:

• • • brand-new cellulose                           o0
    • textile-manufacturing plants             oooo0oo
    • a fast-fashion company                      o0

Compound verb:

• • • to highlight the need                          0o

Listening – Depop sale: fashion retailers must move faster on sustainability (8 mins)

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Before you listen – Prediction

1. In the listening in Unit 1 you heard about the circular economy. Can you give a definition?
2. In the reading in this Unit (‘Circular Fashion’) you learned about innovative ways of taking old clothes and cotton waste and turning them into new products – an example of the circular economy. Depop is a fashion app that is another innovative example of the circular economy. Can you guess how it works? Read the paragraph below and see if you were right.

   Depop is a fashion marketplace app where people buy and sell used clothes that they don’t want any more. Apps like Depop are an innovative way to participate in the circular economy and this redistribution model is transforming fashion. The rise of consumer-to-consumer fashion redistribution platforms (where young people are both the sellers and the buyers) allows consumers to make the most of resources already in circulation. In the process they are making fashion more inclusive, diverse and less wasteful.

3. In this listening, Dr. Ritch highlights the problem of fashion overconsumption in developed countries. How do you think this lifestyle choice affects people in developing countries?
4. Do you think an app like Depop can help solve the problem of overconsumption? If so, how?
5. Can you give a definition for the terms in bold in the paragraph? Use the context to help you guess.

Listen for main ideas 

Play the audio here.

Listen for the specific information required to answer the questions on the cards. Stop and start the audio if you want to. From the flow of information identify just the relevant parts you need to answer the questions.

Download Unit 3 Listening – Transcript

Grammar – Gerunds and infinitives

1. When you have two verbs in a sentence, the first verb dictates the form of the second one. Can you complete the quiz questions with the correct form?

2. The sentences below are taken from the reading and the listening. Read them and notice the form of the second verb ² in the sentence:

Writing

In this Unit you’ve learned about some innovative ways of dealing with textile wate and how the circular economy works. The story of the Al Hannoun honey cooperative in Palestine, who are recycling beeswax, continues this theme.

Read the story of the honey cooperative and write a response to it that incorporates what you know about innovation, and SDG9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. Write about:

• What the beekeepers need beeswax for.
• The machine that the beekeepers are using to recycle beeswax from old bee hives.
• How old beeswax is recycled and what the recycled beeswax is used for.
• Any other topic relevant to innovation or SDG9.

Speaking

Read the summary below and discuss the questions that follow:

1. You’ve learned about the work scientists are doing to find innovative ways to use waste textiles. How important do you think this research is?
2. You’ve learned about the enormous amount of textile waste generated by the developed world. Are apps like Depop available to you? If yes, do you/would you use them instead of stimulating demand for new cotton products?
3. Do you know of any innovative methods to deal with textile waste and to make better use of natural resources in your local context?
4. Can you give a definition for the words in bold above?

Looking ahead to unit 4

In Unit 4 you’ll continue learning about the textile industry and find out about SDG 14 – Life Below Water. At the beginning of this Unit you learned that the textile industry is the second largest polluter of clean water. Can you think of any links between fast fashion and water?

Use the menu bar on the left hand side of the screen to access Unit 4.