Textile Waste Solutions
OSEAN aims to reduce landfill waste by collaborating with neighbors and communities to preserve quality materials, extending landfill lifespan and preserving energy and resources used in production.
Sock Recycling/Repurposing
For the past three years, OSEAN has organized a community collection of clean socks (any type, any material, any condition) and donated them to the Second Cut Project through Smart Wool Canada. While doing so, we noticed that some socks are still in excellent condition and have more life to share, so we often offer “new to you” socks to others in our community.
Additionally, we encourage people to think beyond recycling. For example, socks are an excellent fabric for doing mending of holes in pants (especially knees) as they are stretchy, don’t fray and often have great patterns.
Lone Mitten Project
This is a pilot project between OSEAN and Eco West Enders that just launched in 2024. Every year, hundreds of lost and found bins across Ottawa are filled with individual mittens and gloves that don’t have a partner. We want to collect those, match them as best we can and them donate them back to schools or organizations. If we can’t find a perfect match, we hope to normalize wearing mismatched mittens. Does it matter that your left hand has a blue mitten and your right hand a purple one if your hands are warm? This project is loosely based on Glove Love, a UK program.
Mending Clinic
2021
For Earth Day in 2024, OSEAN hosted our first free mending clinic, where we partnered volunteers who have experience with sewing with neighbours who have something they want mended. We had a lot of fun and a lot of positive feedback, we hope to continue this program throughout the year. The hope is that we will empower and teach residents how to mend their own clothes to help the damage caused by fast fashion, and also normalize visible mending!
Get involved
We are always looking for volunteers to work on these projects, even if its to help store the material!
