Capital Linen Service provide linen and laundry services to hotels and health care facilities across the ACT including Canberra Hospital and North Canberra Hospital.
Every year, they collect, wash, dry, fold and deliver approximately 7000 tonnes of towels, bed sheets, pillowcases and surgical linens like hospital gowns.
When this linen reaches its end of life, Capital Linen donates the condemned linen to a variety of community organisations across Canberra, Australia and even internationally!
Though condemned linen is not suitable for commercial or surgical use, it can often be repurposed.
In September 2025, Capital Linen Service donated 132 kilograms of white sheets to Canberra Institute of Technology for the fashion students to experiment with.
This allows CIT students to experiment with structure, form and shape while repurposing condemned linen and reducing fabric waste. Emilia, Kinzang, Zoe and their classmates were given a design brief to create a unisex garment from the donations which demonstrates an understanding of how the human body moves.
The students showcased their designs at the Sustainable Fashion Festival Clothing the Loop on Saturday 18 October.
Capital Linen Service work closely with a number of not-for-profits and community members and organisations such as Dr Elizabeth Gallagher, with support from Capital Pathology, who ships linen to the Solomon Islands for life-saving surgeries and the Dr Steve Burroughs Foundation who distribute the donations among rural First Nations Peoples across Australia.
For more information on Capital Linen Services including available services, visit the Capital Linen website.
