People in the United States throw at least 17 million tons of textiles every year, approximately 100 pounds of clothing per person. At the same time, the blouses not sold, the jackets and other leftovers of the fashion industry end up in landfills such as the Chilean desert in Atacama, so vast as to be visible from space. Many of these items are fast fashion: they are done quickly, they are sold at a low price and with style for a time too short because the industry depends on the novelty to keep consumers buying.
However, fashion raises more than an aesthetic problem. Each year, the world clothing industry emits up to 10 percent of the production of greenhouse gases in the world and uses enough water to fill at least 37 million pools of Olympic size, as an article pointed out in this magazine last July. The cotton culture can involve massive pesticides, and the thread dye contaminates river pathways with toxic chemicals. Synthetic polymers, such as Nylon, are made with fossil fuels and shed microfibers with each wash.
It is time to embrace a circular economy in fashion, one that reuses clothes, fabrics and thread; recycling to the possible extent; And it encourages producers and retailers to choose textiles and processes that minimize the entry of raw resources, such as cotton or synthetic polymers. Our elections as consumers also matter. The way we select fashion and follow trends is an accessible way that we can make a dent in climate change.
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“We know that the industry is overconsuming [resources] And overproduction in general, “says Laila Petrie, general director of Future Earth Lab, a non -profit sustainability organization.” The volumes have continued to increase, and that cannot continue forever. ” Almost a third From the clothes produced each season are never sold and can go directly to the landfills.
The industry must be responsible for analyzing the entire supply chains and making modifications to reduce the damage.
As consciousness increases, many people are donating or buying in second -hand stores or, when they buy new, looking for “certified organic” labels. And many companies are trying to discover how to remain profitable while producing less and ensuring that what they do less damage to people and the planet. However, consumers and companies alone cannot solve such a vast ecological and climate problem. The industry must be responsible for analyzing the entire supply chains and making modifications to reduce the damage, says Petrie.
Last year, California promulgated a Law of Responsibility of the Extended Producer (EPR) for textiles, which requires brands with more than $ 1 million in global sales to pay the reuse, repair or recycling of its products. Producers will begin to collect used clothes in 2030, but where those garments will end it is not yet clear. “We are observing closely,” says Rachel Van Meter Kibbe, founder and executive director of Advisory Circular Services Group. “It will be interesting to see if brands can lead their own transition.” The state of New York and the state of Washington are currently considering similar bills.
However, EPR is not enough. What is needed is “a fundamental change in the way we consume, make and sell products,” says Van Meter Kibbe. What has in mind is a circular textile economy, which begins with the design of products with all its life cycle in mind.
For example, it is possible that a shirt should be made with only one type of thread or with an easily recyclable mixture and labeled with its constituent fibers so that it can be easily classified, which makes it easier to recycle. Advanced recycling technologies, such as the use of enzymes to separate polycott mixtures in cotton fiber and polymer, are emerging, but they are still expensive and only now they begin to climb. Supporting the development of these technologies would help generate the type of innovation economy that many people affirm that the United States needs.
The Law of America, a federal bipartisan bill proposed in March 2024, seeks to provide incentives for the reuse and recycling of textiles. If promulgated, it would provide a great boost to establish a circular textile industry in the United States as one of the largest textile consumers, the United States also has the potential to become one of the world’s largest recycling economies. “There is a real opportunity here, we just have to capture it,” says Van Meter Kibbe.
An initiative called Fibershed shows how that system could work. It began in California in 2011, connecting regional farmers, designers and producers in a sustainable clothing economy. Since then, the concept has extended to 79 communities around the world.
Even so, a significant part of our clothes will continue to do abroad, in places where farmers and factory workers work in precarious conditions to grow cotton or sew the clothes. Approximately 100 million people, especially women in the global south, sewing garments and only a small fraction of them are paid a decent salary. The companies that obtain from developing countries need to devise strategies along with their suppliers, collaborating with clothing manufacturers and farmers’ groups, to improve conditions, Petrie suggests. Such a process can promote change in an inclusive way and, therefore, they are likely to be more effective.
As consumers, we can buy less, be more demanding in what we acquire, buy or exchange used clothes, wear each garment for a longer time and find new uses for old parts. Such practices were the norm decades, and some are returning.
In Germany, parents often buy children’s clothing from children’s flea markets, particularly useful because children exceed very fast clothes. In India, the old Saris overlap and join in a light quota, a practice that has become an art form. The moth holes in a beloved cardigan can be solved either by a discreet traditional Darning or by the “visible reparation” trade. And in the US, people routinely buy the consignment, savings and online markets for clothing used in good condition, maintaining those items outside the landfills for a while.
Meanwhile, we must remember that consumers are an influential vote block. We can promote regulators and brands to take action, and we can exercise our values deciding what brands support. What we use every day is something we can and we must exercise a lot of power. Deserts should not be full of unwanted t -shirts. Our river paths should not be full of fashion -related microplastics.
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