Exploring waste through making

Interactive Waste began with a simple question: how can we make interactive textiles more sustainable?

Interactive textiles combine textiles with electronic and digital technologies. They can incorporate conductive threads and fabrics, sensors, LEDs, microcontrollers, batteries and other components into textile structures. This creates exciting opportunities for new forms of creative practice, but also introduces a complex waste problem.

At the end of their useful life, interactive textiles can be difficult to dismantle and recycle. Different materials may be stitched, knitted, woven or otherwise integrated together, making it difficult to separate them. Electronic components can also be difficult to reuse or recover, while the textile materials themselves may have limited options for recycling.

Interactive Waste set out to look more closely at this challenge, not simply by asking how interactive textiles might become more sustainable, but by exploring the question through the act of making itself.

Unpicking interactive textiles

Led by researchers and makers Sara Nevay and Lucy Robertson, with Chris Lim, the project brought together people working across interactive textiles, design, technology and sustainability.

The research took a practical, collaborative approach. During workshops, participants brought examples of their own interactive textile work and began by taking them apart. They examined the materials, components and construction methods involved, documenting the different 'ingredients' that made up each piece.

This process of unpicking became an important part of the research. By understanding what goes into an interactive textile, participants could begin to consider where waste is generated, what might be reused and where alternative approaches might be possible.

The project developed a series of Recipe Cards and deconstruction worksheets to help makers record these materials and processes. The recipe became a way of looking at an interactive textile not simply as a finished object, but as a combination of materials, components, decisions and processes.

From deconstruction to reimagination

Having taken their work apart, participants were encouraged to think about how it could be made differently.

Working with reclaimed textiles, waste materials and recovered conductive components, they experimented with alternative materials and approaches. The workshops created opportunities to explore questions around reuse, recycling, durability, repair, post-consumer waste and the lifecycle of materials.

The process also demonstrated that there is no single definition of waste or sustainability within interactive textile practice. Different makers brought different priorities and perspectives. For some, the focus was on materials and reuse; for others, electronic components, energy, durability or the social aspects of sustainable practice became more important.

Rather than producing one definitive solution, Interactive Waste created a space to explore these different perspectives through discussion and making.

Building a community

One of the important outcomes of the project has been the community that has developed around these conversations.
Interactive Waste has connected researchers and makers who are interested in finding new ways of working and has encouraged participants to question established practices and experiment within their own work.

The project is therefore not intended to be a finished answer to the problem of sustainable interactive textiles. Instead, it is a starting point for continued experimentation, discussion and collaboration.

The Recipe Card is part of that process. By completing and sharing your own recipe, you can contribute your experience to the growing collection of knowledge around interactive textiles and sustainability.

What goes into an interactive textile? What happens when we take it apart? And how might we make it differently?

Interactive Waste invites you to explore these questions with us.