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Stories of Wonder platforms and celebrates the real impact Deakin students, alumni, researchers and staff are making in the world, right now.
The textile industry has become the second
worst polluting industry in the world.
With a mammoth amount of waste
from manufacturers and retailers,
and almost no textile recycling.
It's an issue that's having a
negative impact on the planet.
Literally.
But Deakin Associate Research
Fellow, Lucas Rosson, is aiming to
change that in some innovative ways.
From chemical recycling to
turning food waste into textiles,
his research is showing that
sustainable materials are possible.
This is the story of how a young
mining and engineering student made
the switch to study material science,
uncover new insights about how we colour
certain materials and experience some
happy accidents that would lead to new
possibilities in textile sustainability.
Recorded on the lands of
the Wurundjeri people.
This is Stories of Wonder.
Lucas Rosson, thank you
for joining us today.
No worries, Dom.
Pleasure to be here.
Tell me a bit about your story.
How did you end up at Deakin?
I started
My undergrad at Deakin, actually
in mining engineering.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, so
very different.
I was like,
let's go make lots of money in the
mines and don't care about anything.
And then I got a little bit
into that and I was like.
Okay.
I definitely don't wanna do this.
I want to do, still wanna do
engineering because it's maths
and physics and that's fun to me.
I know it's weird, but, yeah, so I,
looked up all the courses and looked
up Deakin's Mechanical engineering
course and I was like, that's great.
And Deakin's close to the
beach, so that's perfect.
So yeah, I started my undergrad there
and it just spiraled into a, PhD really.
Yeah, it was, I started I think in
2014 at Deakin and I'm still there
just in a different sense as a
staff member now in 10 years later.
There you go.
That's something Federation Uni doesn't
have is, being close to the beach.
So we'll take it.
Sustainability is obviously one
of the big challenges of our time.
What drew you into trying to help
find a solution for something in
there and when did that all begin?
Yeah, I can't really, I don't think I
can pinpoint it to a, single moment.
but it was a, number of
things and a bit of a cascade.
as I said, it started at, Federation
Union Mining Engineering, and we were,
they were teaching us a subject on
how you, might mine the moon one day.
And I was like, oh, it's a bit weird.
Maybe we should look after,
like the planet we're on now.
before we start worrying about going
out into space and mining that, that
stuff like, and that got me onto the
sustainability thing or the sort of
circular economy where it's like.
Why don't we reuse the
things that we have?
And then I was a bit interested in
it, but didn't think much of it.
I was still young and very naive.
And then in my final year of my
undergrad, you do like a research project,
Aha.
And mine was on, one of the students
said, this one of the students and his
supervisor had created something called
like the eco printer, where it was like a
off-grid solar panel and battery system.
That enabled, off-grid 3D
printing and plastic recycling.
And so I got in on that project.
I was like, oh, this is awesome.
And just did a, small part of an
analysis for my final year project.
Their whole system.
They took it to the Solomon Islands.
I. To somewhere that didn't have grid
electricity, went to a tip, collected
plastic waste, and then used the solar
panels in the battery to melt that plastic
waste down and 3D print pipe connectors
to fix broken water pipes there.
Wow.
And I was like, whoa, this
can have a real impact.
Yeah.
And pretty much from then I was
like, yep, that's what I wanna do.
I wanna research sort of
sustainable solutions.
particularly around like waste
accumulation and, sort of climate change.
Wow.
Yeah.
Those are such cool examples.
Yeah.
And so amazing that you went from Yeah,
like a mining engineering kind of thing
when they were talking about mining the
moon all, the way in the other direction.
So that's incredible.
Let's talk about the textile industry.
So it's become.
The second worst polluting
industry worldwide.
What are the main things that are
contributing to textile waste?
I love this question.
so with the contributors to
textile waste, you gotta, you,
can look at it for, there's two,
two or three main contributors.
So there's obviously the waste after
the textile is finished being a textile.
So after the t-shirt, you're wearing
you've worn it once and you don't
like it anymore, or you've worn it a
hundred times and it's got holes in
it that's going to landfill basically.
It's very, there's, almost no textile
recycling, so waste accumulation is
one part of it, but also it's the
pollution from manufacturing textiles.
Any textile if it's polyester, cotton,
manufactured cellulose fibres, like the
ones I work with, they have to go from a,
tiny little fibre or like a, something on
the scale of a human hair into a garment.
And the ways we do that are way more
complex than most people really imagine.
And because of there's all these, steps to
the process, each one of those steps has.
Sort of, waste and pollution
associated with it.
And the main one of those is, the
colouring and dying of textiles.
So that's like the main contributor to
the environmental impact of, textiles.
How is that?
so when, you're dying, Textiles.
There's some textiles, like some dyes
or, some materials like some dyes
and other materials like other dyes.
So it depends on what
you're trying to dye.
But for instance, cotton, you
need, I think, and I'm not a
sort of textile dye specialists,
okay,
but, so these are rough numbers, but
you need about a kilo of salt to dye a
kilo of cotton, just so it makes the dye
stick to the cotton a little bit better.
So that's all well and good if
you can extract some of these
things back out of the wastewater.
But lots of this manufacturing
is happening in sort of Southeast
Asian countries that might not have
the regulation that we do here.
And so even though they say they're not, a
lot of the time, they can be flushing the
wastewater out into the local waterways
and, damaging the environment in that way.
But going back to the sort of
the contributing factors to
pollution and textile waste, it's.
If people will focus on, oh,
people will buy too many clothes.
I don't know what it is now.
People say it's like 57 items of
clothing every Australian person
buys per year or something now.
Oh, wow.
Like it's something that might
not be the exact number, but it's,
yeah, in that order of magnitude,
I'm acting shocked.
But if I really think
about it yeah, For me,
and that's wow, that's really bad.
It's, our fault that it's happening.
That's not necessarily true.
That's the main, sort
of contributor to it.
recently I heard one of the professors
from IFM, Chris Hurren, he spoke at a,
like a Philippines textile conference over
in the Philippines, and he said Australian
manufacturers or retailers, Throw away 50%
of the textiles they purchased to sell.
Oh, really?
yeah.
So we'll import this, sell half it,
throw out the rest, because they're
trying to pick what, items are gonna
be like, fashionable or popular.
And if they get it wrong, which
lots of the time they will,
that's what they're throwing out.
So it's really a, systematic problem.
And you can take it back to the
textile industry or any industry.
It's about.
Our entire system is geared
towards continuous growth.
So it's oh, your economy or
your GDP didn't grow by 2% last
year, you're in a recession.
Yeah.
So continuous growth
means continuous waste.
Yeah.
So it's about decoupling our,
manufacturing processes from growth.
Yeah.
That's one of the, one of the
solutions that might help.
But yeah, it's, I've tried and tell
people not to feel too bad about
Yeah.
Buying clothes.
Yeah.
'cause it's it's not you, it's
follow the money.
yeah, exactly.
Follow the money.
It's, we're just like a
product, our environment.
So talk to us a little bit more about
why some of those processes, particularly
with colouring, have to be so different
for things like cotton and cellulose
and what is chemical recycling?
Yeah, because that's really what
you are trying to innovate in.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Where do I start with this question?
Yeah.
there's a lot of, we're
getting into the chemistry.
Yep.
Side of things here.
Buckle up everyone.
so the, reason for the different
dyeing processes is just 'cause
of the, chemistry of the material.
Yeah.
So say polyester has an extremely
different, chemistry to cotton or
the, chemical in, cotton is cellulose.
Okay.
So cellulose water loving, polyester,
Hydrophobic and water hating.
So already there if you're trying to if
you think about the dye as a water, will
easily attach to cotton or cellulose,
but it won't easily attach to polyester.
So then if you've got a polyester cotton
blend and it's, and you want to it as a
fabric, you've gotta diet in the polyester
dye and then dye it in the cotton dye.
Oh wow.
And it's just.
Those processes, like they usually use so
much like the chemicals that are in there
are so, the sort of mass of chemicals they
use per mass of fibre is just astounding.
One way of doing it for one material
that's already bad enough, really.
Yeah.
Waste enough.
But to basically have a
blend where you've got to do
the same thing twice for
each of those garments.
Yeah.
Very wasteful.
Exactly.
And there are like natural, dye, like
natural dyes that can be used to, colour.
And they're
there's some, very toxic dyes out there
that aren't really used much anymore.
And then there's some sort of
conventional dyes or that are mainly used.
Like commonly used ones.
Then there's also natural dyes, but
they're the sort of dyes that you get
a natural naturally dyed textile and
you wash it with your clothes, and then
all your other clothes are- natural
dyes are harder to fix onto the fibre.
Aha..
So,
they'll, wash off.
So that's like the pink shirt that you
throw in with your and , then all of
a sudden you've got 400 pink shirts?.
Yeah.
And then the more washes,
the more the dye comes off.
So it, it's called colour
fasteners, or wash fasteners.
So it'll reduce the colour or
change the colour properties of it.
The more you wash it.
So natural dyes, while they're, like a
good alternative, they still haven't,
like you can, create chemicals that fix
'them to the fibre better, but those
chemicals are usually highly toxic.
Yeah.
So it's a constant
Creating another problem.
Yeah.
Balancing act of how toxic and
chemical full is this gonna be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what is chemical recycling, then?
Chemical recycling, it's, it's
important to probably start off
with why we use chemical recycling.
So for cotton or, cellulose, unlike
polyester, cellulose can't be melted.
So it will decompose.
Before it starts to melt.
Whereas polyester, you can heat it up
and it turns into a liquid and then
you can shape it into different things.
Aha.
Like fibres.
If you heat cotton up in the same
way, it's just gonna like char
and turn to ash or catch fire.
So to turn the cellulose into a liquid
that we can shape into fibres, we have
to use chemicals so they can, they
can do things that temperature can't.
And pick apart the chemical
groups that we need to pick
apart to make it into a liquid.
Yeah.
And chemical recycling stems
from a process that already
happens to make cellulose fibres.
So you've got cotton, they come as little
fibres, they grow as little fibres
that are picked and then go through
a process to turn them into a yarn.
You can also, use wood chips from trees.
And dissolve them down, with chemicals
into a liquid and shape them into fibres
really?
And those fibres actually make
up about 6% of the fibres that
are produced in the world.
Oh, wow.
So cigarette butt filters,
Aha.
They're, cellulose acetate.
So they're made from wood pulp.
But they're processed in a way that's,
it makes them no longer biodegradable,
or it makes them no longer cellulose.
They attach something else to it.
Okay.
But if you've ever heard of say,
like viscose or lyocell or tencell
fibres they're like a, high water
absorbency, similar to cotton.
They're like.
They're the, wood pulp fibres.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
So there are already chemical processes
to take cellulose and turn it into fibres.
Yeah.
And chemical recycling cellulose
works on the same concept but just
using waste cotton instead of chopping
down the trees to get the wood pulp.
To make the fibres.
Okay.
and I think, I don't wanna say it
'cause it's not the right percentage,
but it's something, along the lines.
If we chemically recycled 20 or 30%
of what, of the cotton waste fabric.
We could completely replace all the wood
pulp needed to make those fibres in, the
current, like mass that they're producing.
So it's, somewhat of a, viable solution.
Yeah.
If we can commercialise
it and get it right.
How far away are we from doing something
like that and having a holistic sort
of solution that is scalable to on a
commercial level, to solve this problem?
Good question.
So I have no idea how far away it is.
One recent, I think it was last
year or the year before, there's
a company in, I think they're
out of Europe, called Renew Cell.
And they were doing, they were making-
it's called pulp when you cut down a tree
and get the, treat the wood chips with
chemicals to make it into a pulp that
can be dissolved and turned into a fibre.
So they were making a pulp
alternative from Waste Cotton.
but they, I think they actually went
bankrupt last year, so I was like, oh,
that's a, big sort of hiccup in the
Yeah.
In the sort of sustainability pipeline.
But their product, it was
called Circulose their.
waste cotton pulp.
That's been, their company was taken
over and the Circulose product
has been retained or, so it's, still
coming along there, but I think the,
latest, stats is, it's like
under 0.5% of fibres are produced
from fibre to fibre recycling.
So all, the reci- nearly all the recycled
fibres out there now are, melted down
plastic water bottles that have been
turned into into polyester fibres.
Yeah.
In terms of like actual fibre to fibre
recycling, there's really not much of it.
Yeah.
still a long way to go.
That being said, there's a lot of
research into it and there's a lot of
potentially useful solutions out there.
And even, Even moving away from
waste cotton, the last two years
I've worked with a biotechnology
company called Nanollose out of Perth
and they grow bacterial cellulose.
So it's chemically the same as the
wood pulp stuff, but they grow,
it from bacteria that, produce
it by breaking down food waste.
So they're going food or
food and liquor waste.
So they go, here's some beer,
here's some, it's traditionally
made from like coconut water,
Aha..
But you can use anything that
has the right nutrients in it.
So people, yeah, you can use
like beer waste, food waste, old
clothes, some studies have used.
Wow.
so that's another alternative to, to
like the sort of the chopping down
the trees or the farming, the cotton.
Yeah.
You can make bacteria do the job for you?
Yeah.
Or, use waste cotton.
But yeah, I think it's the waste cotton
is, there's a few different, things we
have to consider because if you, have
a, product that's waste, it might have
all these regulations associated with
it, depending on where it's coming from.
So if you are trying to say, alright,
I want to import a waste to use as
my raw material, then the government
or, legislation in the country that
you're trying to import it into might
be like, Is this waste hazardous?
what do we have to do to treat it?
And then companies like "Too much money.
Too much."
I'll get some trees to do it for me.
Yeah.
It is follow the money, but it's
also follow the bureaucracy.
Yeah.
And how hard it is to
Yeah.
Even spread this kind of practice.
Yeah.
And just, it's probably just
because it's Unprecedented or new.
Yeah.
That it's like there's just this,
the sort of systems that we have in
place, just trying to catch up to,
yeah.
To what, the research is doing.
How have you and, your team, I'm assuming
the people that you've worked with,
uncovered some of this stuff and, were
some of these accidental discoveries,
coming from experiments and stuff?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this, the, particularly
like the coloured.
coloured recycled fibre work that has
spanned like a number of different
researchers, and I've just like
a small, piece in the, puzzle.
my supervisor Nolene Byrne, she was
working on, with, our old director
Xungai Wang, working on just recycling
denim or recycling cotton in general.
With these new chemicals that they wanted
to use, they're like, environmentally
friendly alternative to what they
use in those commercial processes.
and they'd already started looking at,
can we just use the coloured cotton as
is and put it through the process but,
cotton as a waste pre-consumer product
has these properties that make it
really difficult to process into fibres.
So if you dissolve that down, it'll,
make a really thick or viscous
liquid that's hard to push through
tiny holes to make it into fibres.
Oh, okay.
So you have to have, that liquid
has to have the right properties.
So be just thick enough, but not too thick
to, to push through holes to make fibres.
And that's what we found when I started
my PhD, we were working on, trialing
different chemicals to lower that sort of
viscosity of the the cellulose liquid to a
level that was suitable to making fibres.
And we just, it just happened that
one of the chemicals worked really
well and also kept retained the
colour and the fibre to a home.
So it was
yeah,
we should use this.
Yeah.
And then it just yeah,
kept going from there.
And then that was just the fibre
and there's a whole team that's
worked to manufacture this.
So
yeah
just spin all the fibres.
that's what you call it when
you're turning the liquid into,
the fibres -it's spinning.
So to spin all of those, our research
engineer who's now the research
initiatives manager at IFM, he spent
days and probably weeks in the lab,
spinning enough of these sort of
cones of fibres to then take up to the
future fibres facility at Waurn Ponds.
And for them to, knit into a, fabric.
Yeah.
So it's, yeah.
There's an entire team behind it.
I'm just the, lucky one that
gets to, come on the podcast.
Yeah.
To come on this fantastic podcast.
You must have hit some roadblocks
along the way, like things that
didn't work or moments where you, it
just seemed like a complete blocker.
Can you talk about some of
those and what kept you going?
Yeah, COVID That was well, yeah.
In the middle of my PhD.
Yeah.
So that was one that was hard.
It was some of the work that I was
doing on the, they call it the wet
spinning line to make these fibres.
It was like like a ghost town.
In Waurn Ponds and you're by
yourself wearing a mask, walking
around this empty facility.
And it was a bit like, wow.
A bit surreal.
Wow.
It was bizarre.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was.
It was.
So that was weird because you rely
so heavily on the team environment,
it's hard to stay motivated when you
just doing it yourself, but I think.
There in terms of roadblocks for this,
project, there, there weren't that many.
It was it all fell into
place quite easily.
It was recycling this, and
making, coloured fibres like this.
That's one part of the picture.
But in terms of my PhD, we, took
it further and looked at, the
sort of different compositions.
Of fibres you could make.
So I worked on, like they're
called bi-component fibres.
So in this, it's, knitted together with
yarns and each of those yarns have a
hundred fibres or filaments in there.
Yeah.
I was looking at, for each of those
individual fibres, what happens if you
put, if you have one material in the core
of it and one material on the outside.
So the holes, you're squeezing it through.
It's got a little hole in the middle
and a bigger hole on the outside,
but the holes are still very, tiny.
So we went further and looked at, if we
could put a proportion of the coloured
material on the outside of the fibre
And not worry about colouring
the material on the inside.
What do we have to do to, make it
a similar sort of colour strength
or have colour properties to this?
And we found that you could use,
50% of the mass of the fibre could
be on the outside and coloured.
And the other 50% on the inside
didn't matter what it was.
And it would achieve the same colour.
Wow.
So to do that, was.
I had to look through all, do all
these experiments and 3D prints and
parts to print the little prototype,
to extrude the little prototype fibres.
And there were some roadblocks there
that was like- That's the real PhD
work where you get to the two year
mark and you're like, what am I doing?
Does any of this make sense?
Yeah.
but yeah, I think it's just, it just
shows like how important it is to have
the right people around you when you're
doing that stuff like it, it seemed easy
because every time there was a problem,
there was someone I could be like,
what do I do?
Yeah, totally wow.
In the weeds, in the fibres, literally.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
Look, you talked a little bit about it
there, what were the facilities that
you got to use like and how important
were they in uncovering some of this
stuff and, pushing this project ahead?
Yeah, super important.
So the facilities at IFM, Waurn
Ponds, they're like our, textiles and
fibres research group is number one,
textile research group in, Australia.
That is partly due to the
awesome facilities we have.
and it's, recently we acquired some,
equipment that allows us to make.
it's like this, or, textiles like this.
and it's called the, Future fibres
Facility and it's part of the Australian
Research Council Future fibres Hub.
And that's been going, there was a
previous hub that was five years of
funding from the A RC and now we've
got another five years and it's allowed
us to staff and run this, the Future
fibres facility, but then also down at,
that's, part of the Waurn Ponds campus.
But in the main part of IFM, even
without that facility, there's a
small scale wet spinning line that
allows me to extrude the fibres.
But at a sort of textile scale or,
textile quality because if your usual,
spinning studies, there'll be someone
with a little pump and they pump the
liquid through a blunt needle into a
beaker and they're like, look, fibre.
Whereas this, you can
make fibres that have.
the scale, like the size
similar to those in, textiles.
And then you can do the, characterisation
or the testing and compare it directly to
Wow.
Yeah.
To textiles.
So that the wet spinning line they've
got down there, I practically lived on
it throughout the three years of my PhD.
And that's, it's part of the Australian
National Fabrication Facility or
the AMFF and they have nodes in
universities throughout Australia and
you can, you can use their equipment.
Yeah.
at those different universities.
Cool.
The equipment they've got down there,
it's just, it makes the research so
much easier because you're never sitting
there going, oh, how do I prove this?
Or, how do I show that my
fibre has this property?
Because you know you're gonna be able to
just go find the right machine for it.
Yeah.
so it's, yeah, it's pretty, it was
pretty lucky doing it there and having
all that sort of yeah in within reach.
Yeah.
Talk to me a bit about the
future of this research.
What kind of equipment are you
excited about possibly seeing in
the future that'll make it easier?
Talk to me a bit about AI, whether
that, that will play a role.
Yeah, definitely.
In terms of my research,
I am somewhat pivoting.
So since I've, done, finished up
with my PhD, I've worked on batteries
for about, six months, like sodium
ion batteries, and making them out
of waste such as, waste cotton, and
interesting
other waste from the sort
of the water industry.
Yeah.
you can use lots of different.
bio-based wastes as
components in batteries.
wow.
I got a bit into the, let's use
this waste type instead of that.
And that was fun.
And then I've worked with a, like I
said before, a biotechnology company,
to develop or to try and discover new
chemicals or new processes to make
textile fibres from their bacterial
cellulose that's grown from food waste.
Yeah.
and that was really cool working for
their, like with them for two years ago
to work closely with the, CEO and the
sort of, second in charge or I'm not
sure what he had a long, fancy title.
We'll insert it here.
Yeah.
But that was great working with
them and now I've, pivoted further
and looking into, artificial
intelligence and machine learning to,
help guide us in what materials or
chemicals we should use to make the
best and, most sustainable fibres.
So I think it's just the
beginning of that journey, but I'm
interested to see where it goes.
You spent a long time at Deakin, you're
now an associate research fellow here.
What's kept you here all this time?
Good question.
So I think it started off
as, more out of convenience.
So being a lifestyle choice of I want to
be close to the beach so I can go surfing.
And it changed to, being about
having access to those facilities
that we talked about before.
And also just the opportunity to work
with like various different institutes
and various different experts.
So for example, when I, talked to my
supervisor about, wanting to use AI
or machine learning in my research,
he was like, yeah, sounds good.
We should talk to these guys from
Switzerland and from Finland as well.
And so it's just having people that,
that know, or, that have that network
and being able to introduce you or
encourage you to expand your network and
become like a, sort of global researcher,
while still being able to have the
lifestyle of, living down around the
coast and being at Deakin down there.
But yeah.
Has it been a supportive environment?
Have you developed a bit of a community?
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
You never feel like you are
inconveniencing someone if you ask
them a question, like we've got
a, like massive, I don't know if
there's actually heaps of them, but
it seems like there's heaps of them.
The technical support staff down there.
They're just like, it seems like they
can just help with absolutely anything.
And then I found.
Like you, you usually have your
supervisor, or if you're doing a PhD,
you might have two supervisors, and you
can obviously ask them questions, but
every other sort of academic staff or
technical staff member that I've asked,
they've always had the time to sit down
with you or, have a coffee with you
and be like, what do you need to know?
Or.
Here's some advice.
And even though the advice usually comes
in the forms form of questions, but
you gotta take that from the academics
because they're trying to make you
think and, come to the answer yourself.
They can't just tell you the answer.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And what opportunities and experiences,
you've touched on it a little bit,
have you had doing your PhD, has
it really prepared, has it felt
really rubber meets the road and
that it's really prepared you for, a
future beyond once your PhD is done?
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
During my PhD we were encouraged to
do, these training modules, self-paced
or sometimes that they have the, their
sort of, set session times, but usually
they're self-paced and they train you in
all, all different aspects depending on
what you, what road you want to go down.
So they'll, have ones like master, like
a master class in academic writing so
you can learn how to write better papers.
Yeah.
And then they'll, there's also
programs available that are not
run by Deakin, but they're like
freely accessible through Deakin.
There's a, I think it's called the
base program, and that trains you to
come at your research from a commercial
point of view and gives you the skills
you need to translate your research
into real world outcomes, or at least
translate it into a form that you can
pitch to potential industry partners
or potential future, employers.
But yeah, I think the, most
valuable skills that I got out
of it were the soft skills.
So being able to communicate your
research or communicate your work in
general to a diverse range of people.
Say if, I explain my research to someone
who has spent their whole life researching
the crystalline structure of cellulose,
it's, that explanation is gonna differ
a whole lot to explaining it to someone
who might work as like a designer
in the garment industry or something.
So it's like.
Having that range of technical knowledge
and the skills to communicate it, I
think that's one of the most important
things that I got outta the PhD 'cause
they make you do a lot of presentations.
I don't wanna scare anyone off.
Did you ever think that with the
work that you are doing, you'd end up
having your story be told in an ad?
No, never.
No.
I came at my PhD, I read a really
good paper at the start of it.
One of the academics suggested it, and
it was it, I think the title of the
paper was, it's a PhD, not a Nobel Prize.
And I was like, I read it and it's
all about this is what your goal
should be . You're not trying to solve
every single problem in the world.
You're just trying to show that
you can contribute something new
and meaningful, to the scientific
body of knowledge and demonstrate
that you can work autonomously.
And so I was like, all right that's,
I've just gotta get something done,
do a little thing and it's a, sort
of stepping stone in building up a
project that might have some, real
world Impact or some sort of, notoriety.
And then yeah, all it just
I think it's the colour.
I think everyone's like whoa, colourful
fibres, so we better, use this.
But yeah, it's been pretty,
pretty exciting experience.
Yeah.
yeah.
Would you like to watch the ad.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hey, can you see it?
See what
The wonderful possible.
Imagine you see the world drowning in
fast fashion, so you chemically dissolve
old cotton clothes into something new.
Whoa.
Thought you'd like that.
What about a PhD at 80?
Whoa.
Still got it.
Pop up.
Law clinics anyone can access.
Nice.
Or lifting others up through education.
Yeah, I see it now.
Yeah, you do.
Deakin University.
See the wonderful possible.
It's pretty awesome.
You like it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like how well it was described in the
emails that I got, they were like, oh,
here's it was just like a couple of lines
like this is what we're thinking of doing.
And it's like that's, yeah.
That's exactly how I pictured
it, pictured it being.
So you've obviously already done a lot of
amazing things, identifying sustainability
solutions for the textile industry.
You're still at the beginning
of your career as well.
If we were doing another one of those
ads in 10 years time on you, what
do you reckon the story would be?
What do you reckon would be in that ad?
Oh, 10 years time is a
long time to imagine.
I would hope that I will have,
well hopefully have a bit of a
research team, so have some people
working with me on some, or some
like-minded people that wanna research
the same thing working with me.
And hopefully, yeah, I wanna really wanna
pursue this, AI machine learning, aspect
because I am very conscious that tech
how fast this technology is developing.
And I think it's really important for
us as scientists particularly, but, just
everyone in general to keep up with
it because, I think it has tremendous
potential to really change the world.
As long as we don't
accidentally see any of those.
The sci-fi concepts come outta it.
Yeah.
A bit of "I, Robot" or, "the Matrix", but
yeah, I would like to be, in 10 years
time, I'd like to be telling you how the
program or algorithm that we developed
has helped reduce textile waste by this
percentage or that percentage, or at
least just had some, real world impact.
That's my main goal, just to, to
get these wonderful ideas that
everyone has in research to translate
through to being the sort of rubber
on the road, real world solutions.
That's a good goal.
Lucas, thank you for joining us today.
No worries, Dom.
Thanks for having me.