Fast Fashion Waste Is Choking Developing Countries With Mountains of Trash (bloomberg.com) 79
Less than 1% of used clothing gets recycled into new garments, overwhelming countries like Ghana with discards. From a report: It's a disaster decades in the making, as clothing has become cheaper, plentiful and ever more disposable. Each year the fashion industry produces more than 100 billion apparel items, roughly 14 for every person on Earth and more than double the amount in 2000. Every day, tens of millions of garments are tossed out to make way for new, many into so-called recycling bins. Few are aware that old clothes are rarely recycled into new ones because the technology and infrastructure don't exist to do that at scale.
Instead, discarded garments enter a global secondhand supply chain that works to prolong their life, if only a little, by repurposing them as cleaning rags, stuffing for mattresses or insulation. But the rise of fast fashion -- and shoppers' preference for quantity over quality -- has led to a glut of low-value clothing that threatens to tank the economics of that trade and inordinately burdens developing countries. Meanwhile, the myth of circularity spreads, shielding companies and consumers from the inconvenient reality that the only way out of the global textile waste crisis is to buy less, buy better and wear longer. In other words, to end fast fashion.
[...] Globally, less than 1% of used clothing is actually remade into new garments, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK nonprofit. (In contrast, 9% of plastic and about half of paper gets recycled.) The retailers have vowed that what they collect will never go to landfill or waste. But the reality is far messier. Garments dropped at in-store take-back programs enter the multibillion-dollar global secondhand supply chain, joining a torrent of discards from charity bins, thrift stores and online resale platforms like ThredUp and Sellpy. The complex task of sorting through that waste stream falls to a largely invisible global industry of brokers and processors. Their business depends on exporting much of the clothing to developing countries for rewear. It's the most profitable option and, in theory, the most environmentally responsible, because reusing items consumes less resources than recycling them.
Instead, discarded garments enter a global secondhand supply chain that works to prolong their life, if only a little, by repurposing them as cleaning rags, stuffing for mattresses or insulation. But the rise of fast fashion -- and shoppers' preference for quantity over quality -- has led to a glut of low-value clothing that threatens to tank the economics of that trade and inordinately burdens developing countries. Meanwhile, the myth of circularity spreads, shielding companies and consumers from the inconvenient reality that the only way out of the global textile waste crisis is to buy less, buy better and wear longer. In other words, to end fast fashion.
[...] Globally, less than 1% of used clothing is actually remade into new garments, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK nonprofit. (In contrast, 9% of plastic and about half of paper gets recycled.) The retailers have vowed that what they collect will never go to landfill or waste. But the reality is far messier. Garments dropped at in-store take-back programs enter the multibillion-dollar global secondhand supply chain, joining a torrent of discards from charity bins, thrift stores and online resale platforms like ThredUp and Sellpy. The complex task of sorting through that waste stream falls to a largely invisible global industry of brokers and processors. Their business depends on exporting much of the clothing to developing countries for rewear. It's the most profitable option and, in theory, the most environmentally responsible, because reusing items consumes less resources than recycling them.
Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
I truly doubt Slashdot is the place to plead this case. I, like many fellow nerds, have stuff in my closet that's over 15 years old. Nothing gets thrown out until it is permanently stained or ripped. I'm not going to spend money on clothes that could go to other stuff :).
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consider.
maybe the apparel industry is producing to much.
just throwing it out there
Re:Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, my comment was a joke, but it all seriousness to explain the joke: companies tend to produce to meet demand. Sometimes they will overshoot by a little, but for the most people they produce a lot of something when people are BUYING a lot of something.
The solution to this problem would be to convince people to buy less clothing in order to disincentivize production, but as noted, while there will be exceptions, I'd wager that the Slashdot audience as a whole isn't really contributing to this problem much.
It would be like holding a meeting about reducing e-Waste with a rural African tribe. The problem might be real but the people you're talking to aren't exactly the culprits.
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This could also be done through having fewer people on the planet. In fact, that would be an easier path to take.
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I'd like to point out that the quality of clothing has gone considerably down, at least in my limited experience with clothing. OK, I agree that people buy too much clothing. But part of this buying is because it wears too fast. Which proportion is caused by that, I don't know. As far as I'm concerned I'd be perfectly happy to wear 15 years old clothes if they were still OK. The problem today is that you have 0 guarantee, even if you buy so-called "responsible" clothes, that they will last more than a seaso
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Well, my comment was a joke, but it all seriousness to explain the joke: companies tend to produce to meet demand. Sometimes they will overshoot by a little, but for the most people they produce a lot of something when people are BUYING a lot of something.
Beanie Babies, Fidgit Spinners, The Kardashians, etc., etc...... There was no demand for these things. Companies create useless products and then try to *CREATE* demand via advertising.
Especially in this current age of "social media influencers". You try to get the latest YouTube/TikTok/Instagram star to promote your products.
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It would seem the apparel industry are the ones throwing it out there ...
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maybe the apparel industry is producing to much.
just throwing it out there
Great, you're just contributing to the problem.
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"I, like many fellow nerds, have stuff in my closet that's over 15 years old"
Only 15 years old?
I have more stuff in the over-25 years category than under
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I just wore my Old Navy performance fleece I got for Christmas in 1997 (I think) yesterday.
I haven't purchased much from Old Navy but I'm impressed anything you bought there has lasted this long.
The last time I shopped there was about 5 years ago & every top I considered was painfully thin; I couldn't find anything to my taste that looked like it wouldn't dissolve after being washed a few times.
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It's raining today here in Southern California (!), so I wore a hat. It was a freebie passed out at the 1997 Linux Expo in San Jose.
You throw out clothing that's permanently stained? (Score:3)
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Besides, old t-shirts are great to wear when you have to get really dirty and don't want to care about the article of clothing anymore. I specifically have old jeans and tshirts just for those rare occasions.
As others have pointed out, I don't think the Slashdot demographic is really causing this problem. Like at all. The rest of society would prefer we probably buy something new in fact. Not sure why, what we have is still perfectly awesome!!!
Re:Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
I, like many fellow nerds, have stuff in my closet that's over 15 years old.
I, like some fellow nerds, had stuff in my closet that's over 15 years old. Then I got married.
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Marriage made your clothing wear out or made it get thrown away before it wore out.
With tech swag so common, it seems every time I turn around I'm getting another T-shirt from someone. I worked with a guy whose entire wardrobe was clothing from his current tech employer.
I started working for a company and decided to never wear the same shirt. I was about 2 or 3 shirts away from having to wear one twice when there was a layoff. Yep. my closet is full of cool T-shirts!
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I, like many fellow nerds, have stuff in my closet that's over 15 years old.
I, like some fellow nerds, had stuff in my closet that's over 15 years old. Then I got married.
I hope your marriage lasts longer than the clothing that your SO tossed in the bin.
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I truly doubt Slashdot is the place to plead this case. I, like many fellow nerds, have stuff in my closet that's over 15 years old. Nothing gets thrown out until it is permanently stained or ripped. I'm not going to spend money on clothes that could go to other stuff :).
It's true. I have T-shirts older than my kids, and my oldest kid is 27
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There's a Fortran shirt I inherited from my father some 10-15 years older than I am. I passed it on to one of my kids.
Some people have 3rd-generation legacy Fortran code. My kid has a 3rd-generation Fortran shirt.
Re:Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm assuming you're a guy.
Women's clothing, compared to men's, is shoddily made and deliberately designed not to last. Obviously this is a generalization... you can get well-made women's clothing, but there's a lot more crappy women's clothing out there than men's. So the fashion industry builds in functional obsolescence if changing fashions are not enough motivation.
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Is there? Or do you just shop at decent stores and have a bit of observation bias? Or are you counting absolutes? Given the size of the women's fashion industry is 4x the size of the men's.
Re: Slashdot? (Score:2)
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I'm assuming you're a guy.
Women's clothing, compared to men's, is shoddily made and deliberately designed not to last. Obviously this is a generalization... you can get well-made women's clothing, but there's a lot more crappy women's clothing out there than men's. So the fashion industry builds in functional obsolescence if changing fashions are not enough motivation.
My wife has stuff that is 20+ years old in her closet, all purchased at Walmart. I can't remember the last time she bought a new clothing item, months to a year ago? Though I'll agree it seems like all of her clothes cost more in general, and are not as strongly constructed.
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Most women aren't sloppy hose-beasts, like your wife apparently is, and actually put some effort into their appearance.
Women, including professional women, can't get away with outdated cloths any more than you could get a way with wearing sweatpants and a stained t-shirt to the office.
I'm sorry you feel the need to project your situation, but not everyone lives like that.
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All clothing is made thinner and made more shoddy than even 20 years ago. Even shoes, light walking in this new "light" shoe wears out in less than a year when I use to go 5 which included a myriad of activities.
Jeans are way thinner, and shirts, wow, go thread bear quickly. I find elastic going brittle, and socks getting holes/thinning way to quick.
But think the above, is that be a geek/nerd we don't replace things just because it's out of fashion, it's still good until it's no longer structurally useful
Re: Slashdot? (Score:2)
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No all clothing is not made more shoddy today. However, what has been hollowed out is the middle ground. So previously you had cheap clothing that didn't last long. Slight more expensive clothing that could be expected to last much longer, and expensive clothing that would last. That middle ground has basically gone now. A Barbour waxed cotton jacket is still the same as it was 50 years ago and is still made in the UK, it's just 250USD for a jacket. My smart wool GoreTex winter jacket is still looking smart
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They have that crap for men too, but AFAICT the fast fashion trash is mostly sold to fit people. Maybe this is just because it won't hold up on the rest of us. I know I go out of my way to buy natural fabrics for a lot of reasons, and durability certainly is one of them. On the other hand, I've had a lot of Levis blow out in the crotch right next to a seam, so it's not a guarantee either.
I do have some fleece though, and like that stuff it is a major source of microplastics. I send my dryer lint to the land
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Most of those clothes are "fast fashion". They basically last a year and you buy new clothes for the next season. It's terrible because that stuff is bought, then thro
Re: Slashdot? (Score:2)
Nothing like a full length long sleeve denim maxi dress with a high snug collar with the fold over part being large. Not chic or hip, but so damn comfortable, and the collar is great for protecting the neck from the cold (or bugs when the temperature is a bit warmer).
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I also have a few things left in my wardrobe from 15 years ago. I think I still have a T-Shirt, possibly one surviving piece of underwear, from that era. They were not of specially good quality - I just bought mid-range brandless clothes in those days. The rest of the stuff I had from that time, I slowly phased out over the last few years.
But what I find interesting is that all the my other clothes are 3 years old. That means that somewhere around that time (between 15 years and 12 years ago), the quality
Exactly (Score:3)
Go naked. (Score:2)
Don't wear clothes. Just be naked! :P
Depression (Score:2)
Don't worry - lots of people who think of themselves as first-worlders will be learning to mend their clothes soon as the petrodollar goes extinct. If the fabric is good enough to support mending.
The hard truth is that most recycling is BS (Score:3)
Except for a few specific categories (like copper wire or aluminum cans), most recycling is complete and total bullshit. Paper, glass, clothing, plastic? None of is really recyclable at scale.
Re:The hard truth is that most recycling is BS (Score:5, Informative)
Plastic not so much, with around 30% actually recycled as plastic; a further 40% is burned to recover energy from it (actually a pretty efficient process). Clothing is hardly recycled into new products AFAIK, with around 15% being collected, and only half of that is recycled into new stuff, the rest is re-used (if the garment is still good it'll get sent to Africa or donated to needy families)
Figures are from a quick google, but from good sources such as Eurostat.
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Don't confuse recycling with downcycling. Perhaps paper can be recycled one further time, but it's not infinitely recyclable like aluminum cans are. Something like 90% of all plastic has never been recycled.
The truth is that most clothes we were contain polyester (aka, plastic) and can't be recycled, which is what this article about.
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bleached/shredded to be a soft filler or insulation.
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The global insulation market is ~60 Billion / year.
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The truth is that most clothes we were contain polyester (aka, plastic) and can't be recycled, which is what this article about.
They can't be recycled back into clothing fiber, but they can be recycled through fluid bed pyrolysis. It's not profitable, but it is possible, provided the clothing isn't a blend of synthetic and natural fibers. Even then, you just clog the bed faster (but possibly too fast.)
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Paper to paper with fiber length degradation does not match the usual conception of down cycling, since it is reusing the material for a similar or higher purpose. Down cycling is take plastics and mixing various types to make road marker buttons, or blending it with sawdust to create plastic lumber. Something where you take a high quality material and are knowingly preventing future reuse.
Not as bad as that (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't know about where you are but paper and glass seem to recycle pretty well. Ground glass makes energy costs for new glass go down a good chunk. My highschool started using recycled paper as soon as it was available back in the nineties. It looked vaguely like kraft paper and made for hard-to-read smudgy xeroxes. These days they deliberately leave the paper a tad greyish so they can sell it for a premium as "recycled" to greenies, otherwise you'd have to look hard to spot the difference.
Clothing gets so
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glass seem to recycle pretty well
Which is basically why they tell you not to bother picking it up when I've gone on diving clean-ups. They're heavy, basically turn back into sand over time, and so you're better off targeting the plastics and metal objects.
Re:The hard truth is that most recycling is BS (Score:5, Interesting)
Except for a few specific categories (like copper wire or aluminum cans), most recycling is complete and total bullshit. Paper, glass, clothing, plastic? None of is really recyclable at scale.
Please don't project your failures onto others. Quite a few countries have excellent recycling programs for paper, glass, and plastic.
E.g. 86% of glass is recycled in the Netherlands. 89% of paper, and just shy of 50% of plastic is too, and while the Netherlands is a standout for plastic recycling it's not really for paper or glass which several countries are even better at than the Netherlands.
You've tried nothing and you're all out of ideas, look to your neighbours for inspiration.
It was about time (Score:3)
People realize we ran to a disaster. Now I cannot read the poster's Bloomberg pay-walled obfuscated click-bait. So I have nothing to comment about it. Anyway, we got our European local clothing industry that produced long lasting flax, help fiber, wool and silk clothes. That was a environmentally sustainable industry. Now we are overwhelmed by disposable, short-lived petrol-based polymer fibers and dark history cotton industry, still with environmentally and socially hostile practices today. All the industrial capacity is now in Asia.
It took our jobs, it destroyed our environment, it grew on slavery.
Now, if people realize all of this and push for a good change; we can have some hope still.
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Now, if people realize all of this and push for a good change; we can have some hope still.
But will it still be cheap?
Sincerely
The People.
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That makes me realize that prices of clothes have not grown that much in the last 20 years. You could buy a normal tshirt for $10 in 2005, and you can still buy $10 tshirts now. Where did the inflation go? I guess it was absorbed by modifying the raw materials - the same tshirt is now produced with much cheaper fabric, allowing the industry to keep its profit.
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Disposable clothes are cheap to buy, but since they wear faster (a waistcoat or jumper of so low quality, that it develops lint balls after 2nd wash cycle).
Because they need to be replaced more often; those are not cheap in the long run. Add the environmental impact and all those micro plastics generated by those disposable clothes. It is absolutely terrible.
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Anyway, we got our European local clothing industry that produced long lasting flax, help fiber, wool and silk clothes. That was a environmentally sustainable industry. Now we are overwhelmed by disposable, short-lived petrol-based polymer fibers and dark history cotton industry, still with environmentally and socially hostile practices today. All the industrial capacity is now in Asia.
Yeah, for the longest time I'd never even *heard* of the term "fast fashion", which I seem to understand as a primarily European thing? Perhaps also the trendier portions of the East Coast in the US? As a Southern Californian the "fast fashion" concept seems pretty alien to me, and despite a pretty broad social circle I can't think of anyone that seems to meet the definition of a participant in it. Not sure if this is due to West Coast casualness, or a desire for clothing that will be fashionable for a long
Make them pay ... (Score:2)
Fast Fashion Waste Is Choking Developing Countries With Mountains of Trash
The solution to this problem is simple enough, calculate the cost of properly disposing of this stuff and make the manufacturers and the consumers generating this trash pay the full costs of the products life cycle instead of letting them off the hook on disposal costs.
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Seems as if you haven't been searching [amazon.com] very diligently. Note: I am neither endorsing nor recommending Amazon as a clothing source; only citing an example of the wide availability of "relaxed fit" pants in a variety of types, brands, and styles.
Finally, somewhere I'm an "okay" citizen! (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no fashion sense, I routinely wear clothes until they disintegrate (much to the consternation of my SO), and I burn them in the fire pit when they've structurally failed. I don't even light a special fire for that. They wait until one is happening anyway.
Yeah yeah yeah... particulates... but it's a start.
Onshoring would solve a lot of this (Score:2)
Making the Western middle class and upper class have no choice but to get most of their clothes domestically sourced by working class natives who get paid a living wage would do wonders to make people start demanding a higher quality of product. In a similar vein, developing countries would be very smart to start investing in really building up their agricultural capabilities and planning to put tariffs on Western food where possible to protect native farmers.
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Gee, what an odd idea... to pay people who will buy the clothes to *make* them... rather than having them made in sweatshops that are forbidden here, and using cheap crap cloth* and thread, but I mean, that would cut down sales, because people wouldn't rush out to replace clothes more than six months old....
* In the sixties, jeans (aka dungarees) were 16-18 threads/in (I think that's the measurement). Now they're *9*. A couple of years ago, I was trying to buy corduroy pants, and after six stores and three
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Careful with all those anti-globalist suggestions there. Clearly the important people running the world want things to run the way they do.
I mean, why would be against each country trying to produce enough for to sustain itself? Why would any single country have nearly 20% of the worlds grain supply that could be threatened if war broke out? Why would we allow such odd ways of running a society?
It makes more sense to me for countries to do as much as they can locally and then trade when necessary. Knowledge
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I see I have to explain this too: Behr has designated their green color a specific name. Sherwin Williams cannot use that name for the same green. Glidden cannot use that name for the same green. If you sell a paint with that name, you'll probably get sued by Behr.
Part of the answer to that one is natural resources. That includes large areas of steppe that were good for farming. Also wheat takes a lot of water to grow, so places with a lot of available water (among other factors) tend to be good places to grow wheat. If you take a look at a map of Ukraine, it should be obvious just how big the Dnieper river is and that there are a number of other good water sources there. Another possible, and less appealing reason, is poverty. Ukraine has been and is, a quite poor c
If you have too much of something, ask how. (Score:1)
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> and shoppers' preference for quantity over quality
For most people, it's financially easier to buy a new pair of $100 shoes every year, than to take the hit of a one time payment of $500 or more for something that will actually last 5+ years. The choice of buying $100 shoes every year is simply the most logical. I wouldn't treat that as a preference though.
The problem doesn't appear to be paying $N buy a new [something] once a year; it's more like paying $N/50 to buy a new [something] once a week because you've been convinced that the [something] you bought last week is now out of style. And it's not really shoes that are the problem; it's cheap, poorly constructed knockoffs of couture fashion items.
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What is this thing ... (Score:2)
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Advertisers are brainwashing viewers (Score:2)
Maybe the fashion industry should stop telling people they are inadequate without Kim Kardashian's wardrobe
Maybe people should stop believing that material possessions will make their lives more fulfilling
Blame China (Score:1)
I Make My Own Clothing (Score:3)
Fashion is silly so there will be no solution. (Score:2)
Fashion is an industry where smart creatives persuade trifling people to part with billions. The only way to win on the consumer end is not to play but the average idiot is incapable of understanding that.
Airheads want the shiny and will have it. You cannot make people smarter (intelligence is abnormal and a matter of luck) so they will continue to crave Stupid Shit.
Buy used! (Score:1)
I have no idea how old my clothing is, I bought 98% of it at yard sales. $5 for an apparently-virgin Columbia down ski-jacket is a fair price. Maybe I'll even wear it if it gets cold enough...