How Ben Wood did it: Why Outdoor Gear Is Almost Impossible to Recycle - And How One Founder Fixed It
Ben Wood runs Waste and Progress, a textiles upcycle and design studio in Melbourne. The studio works primarily with the outdoor education industry: it takes tents and backpacks that have past their use-by — gear that's no longer functional for the extreme outdoors — cleans them, cuts them back into their original components, and sews brand new products from those pieces.
The company was born out of a relationship with Off Track, an outdoor gear supply company founded by two outdoor gear heads who supply schools with kit. Off Track had started a program called the Second Life Project — an initiative to take tents and backpacks that may not be functional for the outdoors but might still be useful for local school programs or other social initiatives. Some of that gear naturally fed back out into the world, but a 15-person tent with a few rips in it would just sit in a garage taking up space. Ben, recommended by a friend named Derek, asked for some materials. Mitch said they didn't have materials, but they had a tent. Ben took it home, cut it back into its panels, and made a little tech pouch and a tote bag. When he brought them back, Mitch said no one ever comes back with anything new. That moment turned into a mutually beneficial relationship: Ben and his co-founder Frank help triage and repair the gear and get it back out, and in return they get to take the material that's no longer fit for purpose and turn it into products.
Both Ben and Frank are self-taught — Ben as a product designer, Frank as an engineer and business manager. The first product they worked on was a chalk bag for indoor rock climbers, a community Ben knew well from years of bouldering. They sold out of the first run, but realised that making 50 small chalk bags a month was never going to pay them in the long term. The turning point came when an old freelance client asked whether they could make protective packaging for electronics equipment — work that let them build a financial base and move a lot more material, because commercial products can be far more functionally driven than consumer ones. Today the company runs as two trading arms: Work in Progress, the workshop, and Waste and Progress Textiles, the commercial arm that helps local manufacturers take sustainable steps using upcycled materials.
The high-performance fabrics Ben works with are so hard to recycle because of the properties required to perform at that level. A tent base is often canvas — cotton, which is strong and organic but absorbs water — so it's coated on the inside with PVC, a plastic. Once the plastic is fused into the cotton, it is nigh on impossible to separate, and therefore very challenging to recycle. Ben points to early-stage efforts to fix this: enzymes that can eat one material away and leave the other, and a startup he'd heard of in Spain and Portugal developing heat-dissolvable thread that melts in a heating chamber so the panels come out as just cotton.
For Ben, the hardest challenge isn't the materials — it's maintaining mental balance. He and Frank are together 50 to 60 hours a week, navigating the ambiguity of starting a business without a business or design background. His best advice is about systems: 90% of businesses fail to grow in the first three years, so looking after his mental and physical health, and the people around him, will always matter more than the business.
What you'll hear
- How Waste and Progress was born — a tent, a tote bag, and Mitch saying "no one ever comes back"
- The Off Track relationship — triaging and repairing gear for the Second Life Project in exchange for materials
- From chalk bags to commercial contracts — why 50 chalk bags a month wasn't a business, and how protective packaging changed everything
- Why technical textiles can't be recycled — cotton fused with PVC, nigh on impossible to separate
- Emerging recycling tech — enzymes and heat-dissolvable thread out of Spain and Portugal
- Maintaining mental balance — the hardest part of building, and the systems that keep him stable
- Advice for creatives without a business background — go straight to founders doing analogous things
Key claims from this episode
Chapters
Quotes from this episode
So we thought we could find a way to upcycle that gear and keep it out of the landfill, and make some beautiful product and tell a story along the way. And that's really how Waste and Progress was born.
— Ben Wood, on the idea behind the studio (00:09) No one ever comes back. But no one's ever come back with anything new.
— Ben Wood, on what Mitch said when he brought the products back (07:20) The hardest challenge, I think, is maintaining mental balance.
— Ben Wood, on the hardest part of building (14:41) Once it's infused into that cotton, it is nigh on impossible to separate.
— Ben Wood, on why technical textiles resist recycling (19:33) We've bootstrapped this because we want to make every step intentional.
— Ben Wood, on choosing product-market fit over unlimited funding (25:11) We all know the reality that 90% of businesses fail to grow in the first three years.
— Ben Wood, on why systems and self-care come first (16:23)
Themes Ben returns to
- Upcycling over recycling — turning gear that's past its use-by into beautiful, functional products instead of landfill
- Mutually beneficial relationships — the Off Track partnership where help triaging gear earns access to materials
- Consumer versus commercial — commercial work is more functionally driven and moves more material; consumer work demands design and marketing
- Mental balance as the hardest part — emotional fluctuations, support networks, and bringing your best self into the studio
- Bootstrapping intentionally — choosing product-market fit over unlimited funding to keep every step deliberate
- Mission over virality — the mission matters too much to go viral for the wrong reason