Hundreds of obsolete Tasmania Police uniform items have been donated to find a new lease of life with the Navy and Police agencies of Pacific Island countries.

The Australian Maritime College approached Tasmania Police to donate the old uniform items which had been stockpiled after new uniforms were introduced in 2010.

Under the project, students enrolled in Business Management through the Pacific Patrol Boat Project will arrange the stocktake, storage and distribution of the items as part of their course.

The students, who are members of the Police and Navy in Marshall Islands, PNG, Tuvalu, Tonga, Kiribati and Solomon Islands, will stay at the Tasmania Police Academy for several days while they catalogue and pack up the items.

The students will remove the Tasmania Police insignia from the old uniforms and return the badges to DPEM. The items, which include trousers, shirts and jackets will be distributed to police and defence personnel in Pacific Island Nations.

“The logistics of stocktake, arranging transport and distribution of uniform items is a project that will benefit the Police and defence services in the Pacific Island countries, and provide a valuable learning exercise in the Business Management course,” said AMC Project Manager, Lochie Brown.

“Many of the clothing items now obsolete as part of the Tasmania Police uniform upgrade are still in good condition and will be well received by the Pacific Island Nations police and defence agencies,” said the Commissioner of Police, Darren Hine.

“Tasmania Police has never had such a large amount of old uniform items and this project is an ideal way to resuse it. In the past old uniform items have been recycled into rags or destroyed because of the cost of removing police insignia and distributing a small number of items was prohibitive.”

“This project ensures the obsolete uniforms are recycled with minimal cost to Tasmania Police,” said Mr Hine.