Nine To Noon Out of date uniforms turned into plastic panels
Mar 12, 2026
Geoff Volbrecht, founder of ImpacTex and textile recycling entrepreneur, leads efforts to turn unwanted uniforms into recycled products. He talks about sourcing branded uniforms from corporates and retailers. He explains converting garments back into fabric, making semi-rigid textile panels for signage, closed-loop reuse, and challenges scaling these solutions in New Zealand.
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Corporate Uniforms Repaired Into New Textile Feedstock
- ImpacTex focuses on recovering branded corporate uniforms and textiles to extend garment lifespans instead of sending them to landfill.
- They sort for reuse or donation, remove hardware, and convert unsuitable items into onshore recycled feedstock used for new products.
Sort Before You Recycle To Maximise Value
- Prioritise sorting into resale/donation first, then recycling for remaining textile waste to avoid landfill and keep material onshore.
- ImpacTex donates saleable uniforms free to charities and recycles non-sellable garments into usable waste streams.
Hands On Process Of Removing Zips Buttons And Pocket Junk
- The recycling process is highly manual: staff remove zips, buttons and items from pockets to return garments to raw fabric.
- Geoff describes finding pens and tools in pockets and the physical grind of hand-processing each garment.