Kwinana Public Library’s popular Kids Clothing Swap won the Library Board of WA’s Innovation and Collaboration Award in the Metro and Large Regional category on Thursday, 2 July.
The clothing swap started as a pilot circularity program in April 2025 with 48 families, since growing into a keystone school holiday program with 621 people participating across four sessions in the past year.
The range of sizes was expanded over time based on family feedback to accommodate donations for ages 0 to 12 years.
Mayor Peter Feasey said the popular program brought families together in a safe and comfortable way to share, keep clothes out of landfill, and meet very real community needs by offering free access to good quality clothing as cost-of-living pressures increase.
“The library worked with families at an early literacy program to develop a format suitable for Kwinana’s community,” Mayor Feasey said.
“Many barriers were removed by making the program free, adjusting times of pick-ups to meet community needs, not requiring families to donate to be able to take clothes, and donating the remaining clothes to local organisations.
In one year, there’s been a 150 per cent increase in the number of people donating clothes and a 500 per cent increase in the number of families taking clothes, with 562kg of textiles diverted from landfill.
Educational materials were also developed with the City’s Environment and Waste team to encourage families to preference natural sustainable fabrics over fast fashion, delivering on the City’s Sustainability Framework.
The Kwinana Public Library received $5000 as part of the award.
“Libraries are well known for their role in circularity through loaning books, toys, and other materials, and for being a place of community connection,” Mayor Peter Feasey said.
“The Kid’s Clothes Swap program has been a creative way to utilise these strengths to address the environmental problem of textile waste,” he said.