Episode 66 -- Meriel Chamberlin from Full Circle Fibres

@AuManufacturing Conversations

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In this episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski, we hear from Meriel Chamberlin, Founder & Creator at Full Circle Fibres, a textile scientist who has worked at many different points within the industry's supply chain over almost three decades. She tells us the difficulty of going from test tube to tonnes in R&D, why we need to pay more attention to the doers rather than the ticket clippers when it comes to the circular economy, how Australia is focussed on developing the sovereign capability to kill but not to care, and more.
Episode guide
0:40 – “Yes, we still can make textiles in Australia, although we do have to do one stage overseas…”
1:40 – The work of a textile scientist is everywhere, but rarely considered.2:50 – Technically creative people “exist in all sorts of industries.”
5:10 – The twin problems tied to textile-making around the world: waste and slavery. “And the thing that’s really heartbreaking is… none of that’s necessary.”
7:34 – TCF “a bureaucratic term” particular to Australia.
8:20 – Textiles and related industries are huge in Australia, “but we don’t connect the dots.”
11:40 – Assumptions to do with a soft product and the engineering behind it.
12:40 – Mud to Marle. A project based on systems innovation.
15:25 – Using already-available, scalable technology with an end in mind rather than blue sky research.
17:20 – A 12-month project. Currently selecting colours for pilot batches.
18:06 – The “test tube to tonne” stage in R&D and why bridging this is so important for commercialisation.
19:40 – Some thoughts about scaling, and the issue in circular economy efforts: not enough doers and too many ticket-clippers.
21:15 – There is no remanufacturing without manufacturing. It is critical that existing manufacturers be brought along, because they have the expertise.
22:10 – “We’ve got all this support for research in the circular economy, but we’ll let the manufacturers just die a death of a thousand cuts… It’s like we need to graft the circular economy onto the shrubs and trees of manufacturing. To grow something from seed is so much harder.”
23:10 – Some attitudes that are holding us back.
25:10 – Some of the advisors and experts concerned with innovation in this country should probably be replaced.
26:40 – We can downcycle, but don’t have the ability to do textile-to-textile recycling here. What would it take to fix this? About $3 million and 2,000 square metres.
29:15 – Ending up in a funny no-man’s-land for attracting investment. “This is not a VC-type investment”.
31 – “We can’t make a sandbag or a tarp from scratch in this country.” Why we are “frighteningly at risk” for a lot of essential supply chains.
Relevant links
Full Circle Fibres' website.
Onshore textile manufacturing project among Country Road Climate Fund grant winners
Healthcare PPE, standard protocols and contingency planning: How do we flatten the curve of demand for PPE as we flatten the curve of infection rates?