Giving Workwear a Second Life: The Building Engineering PPE Re-Thread Program

What happens when a uniform is no longer considered fit for purpose?

For Building Engineering and Assembled Threads, the first answer is not recycling. It’s repair.

Through the PPE Re-Thread Program, we’re working together to extend the life of Building Engineering’s uniforms and keep them in use for as long as possible.

Our team carefully assesses returned garments and, where possible, repairs and restores them so they can go back to work. This can include removing outdated embroidery, repairing damage and giving garments a new lease on life rather than replacing them with something new.

For uniforms that are beyond repair, we work with our recycling partner. The garments are shredded into fibre, which can be reused in applications such as soft furnishing filling or into recycled thread for the carpet industry.

So far, the program has diverted more than 60kg of uniforms from landfill, saving approximately 8,000kWh of energyand avoiding more than 1,333kg of CO₂ emissions.

And the program is growing. Building Engineering has recently dropped off another 15kg of used uniforms, with collection bins now being introduced at its Waverley and Geelong projects.

For us, this is what circularity looks like in practice: repair what we can, reuse where possible, and recycle what’s reached the end of its useful life.

It’s also a great example of what can happen when organisations work together to rethink what happens to uniforms at the end of their first life.

60kg diverted, and counting. And we’re only getting started.

Because the most sustainable uniform is not necessarily a new one. Sometimes, it is the one we find a way to use again.