Is Sustainable Fashion a Myth?
I threw out a pair of socks today. They had a hole in the heel so they were basically useless. This event is likely not going to make the evening news, yet it should be a point of reflection for all of us. What are we doing with all the clothes we buy? How often and how long do we wear them? Where do they end up? What is the fashion industry’s role in our society? How is it damaging our environment and is there anything we can do?
Truth to be told, clothing is quite an essential element of modern lifestyle. Not just so you can be the coolest-looking person in the club but for survival as well. I’m sure the majority of the population would be highly reluctant to commit to only wearing loincloths from locally sourced fibres.
The passion for fast fashion
In the past 30 years, the fashion industry has become one of the most successful and at the same time most destructive on the planet. Just like fast food, the endless craving for quick and cheap satisfaction only begets more cravings for the same. It is not only the power of marketing that drives people to buy more, it is also the pervasive mentality that people can afford to buy new stuff, hence the effort to take care of clothing or to mend it is redundant.
Buy cheap - buy twice (or several times) sounds like a perfect business model to the majority of textile producers. Between 1975 and 2018, global per-capita textile production rose from 6 kilograms to 13 kilograms per year with the biggest increase in polyester. Global clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014 with some 100 billion items of clothing bought per year! An average US consumer buys 66 items of clothing per year (around one every 5.5 days) and discards them at the same rate.
Sadly, about a third of all clothes imported to Europe are not even being sold and are eventually dumped. Many garment workers are not only being exploited, overworked and underpaid, but they are also producing bonkers amounts of clothing that end up in a landfill.
Globally, only 20 per cent of clothing is recycled. As many as 90 million tonnes of clothes are discarded every year. If that’s hard to put into perspective, consider this: every second, the equivalent of a garbage truck of textiles is burned or landfilled!
The environmental impact
The fashion industry knows how bad it is and many are trying to take measures to minimise the downright catastrophic effects on the environment. The World Economic Forum (WEF) concludes that fashion is responsible for 5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is the third most impactful industry after food and construction and ahead of the cars, electronics and freight industries.
But the problem goes beyond just greenhouse gas emissions. The fashion industry consumes about 100 million tonnes of non-renewable resources every year, including oil to make synthetic fibres and dyes, and chemicals to colour and finish the fabrics. It also gulps around 93 trillion litres of water a year. To feed the fashion industry’s need for wood pulp to make fabrics like viscose and other fabrics, 70 million tons of trees are cut down each year.
About 20 per cent of the world’s industrial wastewater is generated by treating and dying textiles, while 190,000 tonnes of microplastics are dumped into the ocean each year (about a third of the total!).
Cotton is an especially thirsty crop. For example, one kilogram of cotton used to produce a pair of jeans can consume 7,500 to 10,000 litres of water—the amount a person would drink over 10 years. Cotton production also requires pesticides and insecticides, which pollute the soil; runoff from fertilized cotton fields carries the excess nutrients to water bodies, causing eutrophication and algal blooms.
The demand to be cheap forces fast fashion to rely on the exploitation of the population in third-world countries where regulations are laxer. Of the 75 million factory workers around the world, it’s estimated that only two per cent earn a living wage. Workers (many of them underage) are exposed to hazardous chemicals and dangerous conditions. Additionally, the whole communities that live in the proximity of the factories live in a heavily polluted environment.
You are guilty just as well
The environmental impact of clothing doesn’t stop at the end of the production line. Caring for clothes consumes vast amounts of energy, water and detergents. Reports find that this phase of clothing is the most environmentally damaging of all, especially if clothes are tumble-dried and ironed.
Even more microplastics than during production are created when laundering and drying clothes, and when discarded items degrade. The UN reports that half a million tonnes of textile-derived microplastics end up in the ocean every year!
Yet still, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) concludes that the greenhouse emissions from the fashion industry are going to rise by another 50 per cent by 2030. If that is the case, this industry alone will produce a quarter of all carbon dioxide we can afford to emit if we want to stay below 2℃ of global warming by 2050.
The much-needed makeover
The fashion industry knows very well that it is one of the biggest failures of modern humanity and is in need of drastic changes. Tackling the greenhouse issue is going to be an enormous problem.
Experts advise that a complete makeover is needed, from raw materials used, to how they are treated, to killing the fast-fashion model, improving recycling and educating users on how to take care of clothing and encouraging them to reuse and repair. The much-needed industry shrinkage won’t come easy either to money-hungry producers or to the consumers spoiled for choice of endless variations of the new models.
Producers can eliminate about 50 per cent of their emissions by upgrading to more energy-efficient machinery and transport, switching to renewable sources of heat, and using greener dying and recycled fibres and textiles.
If producing countries (mainly Asian countries) were to phase out fossil fuels for generating electricity it would add another 40 per cent drop! This, however, doesn’t take into consideration that many Asian producers use their own coal-powered generators for electricity and are not even connected to the grid.
The last 10 per cent could be achieved by growing cotton more sustainably.
Is recycling a utopian idea?
At the moment, we have two processes for recycling clothing - mechanical and chemical. The former is applied to natural fibres like wool and cotton. The materials are combed or shredded to create fibres that are then spun into new yarns. The problem is that with every process, the fibres are weakened and the quality degrades.
The chemical process takes polymers, breaks them down into their constituent monomers and rebuilds them. This technology can be used on cotton, viscose and polyester, but the technology still needs improvement.
Mixed garments such as cotton-polyester present a major challenge. Likewise, elastane, which is a wonderful stretchy material and gives clothing flexibility is very nasty for recycling.
Another issue is how to collect old clothes for recycling. The retailers have to incentivise the customers to bring back the old clothing in exchange for new ones. Since the received clothing comes in a pile of mixed garments it has to be (for now) sorted by hand. Zips, buttons and patches have to be removed and often can’t be recycled. No wonder only 1 per cent of the world's textile is turned back into clothing.
There are new materials in development that are easier and more efficient to recycle for example Infinna, a Finland-made process that takes cellulose-rich waste (i.e. cotton and cardboard), cleans it, breaks it down and re-polymerises it into a fibre similar to viscose. The cycle can be repeated endlessly. A Swedish company is working on a similar product, a cellulosic fibre called Circulose.
Teemill, a company based in the U.K. makes garments from pure cotton but only dyes and finishes them once they are ordered. They use natural dyes and 100 per cent renewable energy. Every item has a QR code that provides instructions on how to return it for recycling at the end of its life cycle. They hope they will reach the point where there will be enough discarded material to meet the demand for new clothes.
But everyone is waiting for the big brands to jump on the sustainability train and close the loop. To make today’s waste products the feedstock for tomorrow’s cycle is going to take some redesigning of how clothes are made and what materials are used. For example, polyester might have to be sacrificed altogether although it’s such a good fibre, especially in sports clothes. The same goes for elastane. They are both hard to substitute, so the emerging materials will have to do the job.
What can you do?
You as a customer have more power to change this situation than you think. The greedy ever-growing retailers and producers are always ready to listen to the demands of their customers. You vote with your money.
Demand more transparency when buying clothes and shoes so you can learn how they were made. Find out about recycling options in your area. And most importantly, be conscious of how you take care of your garments - minimise washing, detergent use, and especially tumble drying and ironing.
Bypass the shameless advertising that aims to persuade you that clothes go “out of fashion” every 3 months. Adopt slow fashion:
Slow down and think twice before you buy.
Buy less new clothing and only what you need and increase the number of times clothes are worn.
Choose natural fibres and single-fibre garments.
Expect to spend more on new clothing that is of better quality, more sustainably produced and more transparent in the production procedure.
Buy second-hand and when you’re done give it to an op shop or charity or swap it with someone for something else.
Find ways to repair damaged clothing.
Rent clothing that is needed for special occasions.
Conclusion
Manufacturers, retailers and customers all have to join forces to make a change in this industry that is choking the planet. Clothing is an unavoidable part of modern life, but we can all make our own contributions to make less impact on the environment.
And it all goes back to my socks. The next ones I buy I want to know where they came from, how they were made and if are they going to last me for a while. I want to know what to do with them once they are at the end of their life. They are a type of garment that can’t be passed on or endlessly sewn. So, hopefully, they can be recycled without a massive ecological impact so I can buy them ‘new’ again.
Fashion is by definition about change, innovation and trendsetting. But why not make reusing, repairing, repurposing and recycling clothing a trend? To demand that the producers use more sustainable natural materials like hemp, ramie or bamboo instead of cotton, improve the working conditions of their workers, and switch to renewable energies.
There is a long way to go to make fashion sustainable, but let’s be the example we want to see in the world.
Resources:
Can Fashion Really Go Green - an article by Graham Lawton published in New Scientist Australasian Edition June 4th 2022
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/06/10/why-fashion-needs-to-be-more-sustainable/