Virgin Australia is recycling their cabin crew uniforms into teddy bears for charity.

SURPRISING FACT: Every month Virgin Australia throws away 1.2 tonnes of crew uniforms. That’s the equivalent weight of one polar bear or a small car or two average sized horses. So what happens to the used items of clothing?

In a new initiative, Virgin Australia is now recycling the material to make blankets, pillows and teddy bears for shelters.

The airline held a competition among staff to come up with some ideas for what to do with the old uniforms.

Flight attendant uniforms have been turned into teddy bears for children in emergency shelters.
“One of the most innovative uses of the recycled material started as an idea proposed by a member of staff to recycle the uniforms into items that can be used in shelters such as blankets, pillows and even teddy bears that are provided to children in need,” said a Virgin Australia spokesperson.

Virgin has now partnered with WA-based business, In-Balance through the LOOP social venture to create a range of different coloured blankets, pillows and teddy’s made from the different coloured Virgin uniforms.

Crew uniforms are issued when staff first join the airline and particular uniform pieces are reissued throughout their time in the company. Some items once per year, others every few years, depending on wear and tear.

The red uniform is reserved for cabin crew.

The items made from these discarded uniforms will be of varying colour depending on which employee it came from. For example, the dark grey uniform is for cabin supervisors, the black is for cabin managers on long haul flights and the red uniform is for cabin crew.

Virgin is also using uniforms from pilots, ground crew and engineers to help make the items being donated to the shelters.