Abstract
South Africa is a country which is facing significant textile waste problem. High volumes of second-hand products are entering the marketplace and represent an opportunity to SMEs and micro-businesses. Clothes to Good (CTG), a South African charitable organisation, are working to offset this challenge by creating upcycling programmes which repurpose these products through micro-business models designed to empower mothers of neurodivergent children. Neurodiversity is rising in South Africa and sensory stimuli products are an opportunity to repurpose second-hand clothing to products to support these consumers. This research represents the pilot study of a larger project investigating micro-business programmes creating weighted products from upcycled materials in South Africa. Using an exploratory methodology employing in-depth interviews with two key stakeholders in CTG this work highlights several barriers or areas of concern when implementing these programmes: 1) design expertise, 2) textile challenges, 3) scalability concerns.
Keywords
circular fashion, micro-businesses, social enterprise, neurodivergent, adaptive design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2239
Citation
Murray, J., Carey, L., Smal, D., and Sheik, A. (2026) From Waste to Opportunity, Upcycling Innovation in the South African Context: The Case of Clothes to Good, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2239
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
From Waste to Opportunity, Upcycling Innovation in the South African Context: The Case of Clothes to Good
South Africa is a country which is facing significant textile waste problem. High volumes of second-hand products are entering the marketplace and represent an opportunity to SMEs and micro-businesses. Clothes to Good (CTG), a South African charitable organisation, are working to offset this challenge by creating upcycling programmes which repurpose these products through micro-business models designed to empower mothers of neurodivergent children. Neurodiversity is rising in South Africa and sensory stimuli products are an opportunity to repurpose second-hand clothing to products to support these consumers. This research represents the pilot study of a larger project investigating micro-business programmes creating weighted products from upcycled materials in South Africa. Using an exploratory methodology employing in-depth interviews with two key stakeholders in CTG this work highlights several barriers or areas of concern when implementing these programmes: 1) design expertise, 2) textile challenges, 3) scalability concerns.