4KT Elephants Project
Textile waste presents an ‘elephant in the room’. The 4KT Elephant Projects will create a positive, empowering way to engage the community in discussion and demonstrate how textile waste can not only be reduced, but used to enrich our lives.
Dunedin waste management review reports that Dunedin’s textile waste to landfill has doubled in the last year, with over 4 thousand tons of textiles added to our green island landfill. Textile waste also contributes significantly to Dunedin’s carbon footprint, as slowly degrading synthetic and natural fibres contribute 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions from our current landfill, which will continue long after the landfill has been decommissioned (200-700 years according to estimates based on the breakdown time for synthetic fibres!).
This project started in 2019 with support of the Dunedin City Council with Dunedin Dream Brokerage, as part of Te Ao Tūroa - Dunedin’s Environment Strategy.
4KT Elephants Project is a unique creative project to engage the Dunedin community in practical solutions to re-purpose textile waste, reduce landfills, build resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
NB: Although not found in NZ, elephants are known for helping the biodiversity and ecosystems of the areas they live. They are also renowned for their long lives, long memories and strong social bonds. We have developed an idea that we hope will bring these special benefits to Dunedin.
We designed a unique soft toy elephant, which can be made by anyone in our community from (clean) worn clothing, curtains, bedding and other textiles, along with commercial waste stuffing materials.
We will ultimately make four thousand elephants - one for every ton of waste, each with its own numbered tag.
Elephants can be adopted by participants; donated to local children's projects such as Foster Hope, Tedz4Kidz, Te Whare Pounamu Dunedin Women's Refuge; or sold to raise money to support the ongoing costs of the project as we continue to work towards our goal to make four thousand soft toy elephants: one for each ton of textile waste.
We will be continuing to run regular workshops, and making up ‘elephant kits’ of pre-cut pieces ready for sewing to encouraging home sewists who cannot make it to our workshops.
It is heartwarming to think of all the homes and hearts these will help to brighten!
You can get involved in a number of ways!
Help us cover the ongoing costs of running this project by ‘sponsoring an elephant’ with a donation
Volunteer to help us prepare 'elephant making kits' by sorting, cutting out and putting kits together.
Download the pattern and instructions below, and sew your own elephant from clean fabric scraps and items you have at home.
Take an elephant on a local safari! We're keen to showcase all the things we love about our city and surrounding natural environments, by collecting and sharing photos of our elephants and the environment they help us to protect. Tag us (@stitch_kitchen on Instagram or @StitchKitchenDunedin on Facebook)