The Hidden Burden of Fashion Waste
The world is producing, consuming, and throwing away more clothes than ever before. Clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014, with more than 150 billion garments produced annually. Europeans throw away 2 million tonnes of textiles each year. Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned. Many of us donate our unwanted clothes to charity shops and clothing collection banks - but do we really know what happens to them then? Globally, only 30% of collected clothing are resold on domestic markets, due to poor quality and low re-sale value. The rest are baled and sold to textile merchants who ship them overseas to Sub-Saharan Africa to sell in countries like Kenya, Ghana and Senegal. While exporting our used clothing to the Global South increases the life span of garments, provides access to cheap clothing for low income communities, and creates new local economies, not all of the impacts are positive. The influx of vast quantities of cheap ...