Clothing—once seen as a basic necessity—is now disposed of like trash. The textile industry is a leading contributor to landfills, with over 100 million tons of textile waste generated globally in 2017 alone.

Due to mass production and ever-changing fashion trends, the world has seen a massive increase in the amount of clothing consumers are buying. To reach this demand and continue profiting, clothing companies are using unnatural resources and outsourcing their manufacturing to countries with less strict environmental regulations.

The combination of consumer culture and corporate greed has created severe environmental damage with seemingly no end in sight.

What changed?

Because of the low pricing and constantly changing selections, clothing has become viewed as disposable. This attitude shift can be attributed to the Industrial Revolution, which gave Americans the ability to produce items in mass quantity at lower prices.

It wasn’t until the 1990s that we saw clothing become relatively cheap with many options. While having a mass array of clothing was once seen as an indicator of immense wealth, it is now simply the norm.

To be viewed as ‘fashionable,’ consumers believe they must have the latest clothing, thus feeding into consumer culture. This constant need to stay up-to-date with trends has led consumers to value the quantity of their clothing rather than its quality. Clothing is now only worn an average of 7 times before being disposed of, leading more consumers to opt for cheaper and less durable items.

As a response, clothing companies have decreased the quality of their clothing so that the average lifespan of an item is now only 2-10 years.

Producer-end environmental damage

Large and recognizable clothing corporations, such as Zara and H&M, utilize cost-efficient methods to produce clothing. These methods often occur at the expense of exploiting the environment and their textile factory workers.

Clothing manufacturing requires nonrenewable resources, such as synthetic fibers and toxic chemicals that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Every time consumers wash their synthetic clothing, close to 2000 microfibers will be released into the water and eventually make their way into the ocean.

In addition to causing water and air pollution, synthetic fibers are non-biodegradable and can take up to 200 years to decompose in landfills. If the apparel industry continues on this path, the already large amounts of textile waste sitting in landfills will continue to accumulate over time. This accumulation of waste will eventually be burned to create more space leading to emissions filled with toxic chemicals and poisonous gases.

The process of making clothing can be extremely destructive to the environment, and the vast majority of large companies outsource their manufacturing to countries in Asia with less strict environmental standards and laws. This outsourcing allows companies to continue producing and selling cheaply while putting the environment and people who live in these countries at risk.

Consumer-end environmental damage

Over time, consumers have purchased clothing at an increasing rate, with the average consumer buying 60% more clothing items than what they bought 15 years ago. Issues arise when these same people need to clean out their closets to make room for newer items.

The solution for many Americans is to simply throw their unwanted clothing straight into the trash. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2018, 11,300,000 tons of clothing ended up in landfills compared to the 2,510,000 tons of recycled clothing. This number is exceptionally alarming because, as discussed above, most clothing is non-biodegradable, causing the textile waste to accumulate.

What can consumers do?

Unfortunately, most of the clothing industry profits off their environmental destruction, and altering the way this industry functions may appear daunting to the everyday consumer. However, as consumers, we must recognize the amount of power we have in every purchase we make.

Companies are constantly looking to match consumers’ demand, so if we stopped buying so many products, clothing companies would no longer have a reason to keep producing as many.

While clothing companies supply the available products, consumers can change what these brands sell based on what we’re buying. More companies have opted towards recycled and sustainable clothing lines, with more people becoming aware of the environmental and ethical issues within the fashion industry. We can impact what companies sell.

It’s as simple as Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – or is it?

To help end this destructive cycle of textile pollution and waste, consumers should recycle and reuse old clothing and reduce clothing consumption altogether.

Recycling unwanted clothing by donating or selling to local and online thrift stores is a more eco-friendly option than throwing out clothes to rot away in landfills. However, many items in thrift stores will likely be passed along to landfills and textile recycling. Fibers and materials from unwanted clothing can be recycled instead of thrown into landfills. Still, the process is very difficult because most clothing is made up of blends of different yarns, plastics, metal, etc. These variations make manually sorting these items a very laborious and difficult task. While some fiber sorting technologies do exist, they are very expensive and hard to come by.
Reusing old clothing with a different purpose is a unique way to alter one’s closet without buying more clothing. There is a range of ideas online, especially on websites like Pinterest. However, this option requires creativity and time, which may not be worth it to consumers when they could simply buy the exact item they’re looking to create.
Reducing one’s clothing consumption is the most straightforward answer to minimize textile waste. Instead of buying cheaply made clothing, consumers should purchase well-made items with longer lifespans so that there is no need to buy new clothing as often. It’s also important to recognize if a clothing item you’re about to purchase is one you plan to wear multiple times.

Change from within

While consumers can assist in the fight for lessening textile waste, small shifts in the supply chain can lead to huge change overall.

If companies were to shift from synthetic fibers to natural or semi-synthetic, the manufacturing process would involve fewer fossil fuels, and clothing in landfills could decompose significantly quicker.

As discussed earlier, recycling clothing can be a lengthy process due to the plethora of different materials and fibers in each clothing item. For clothing to be easily recyclable, brands should produce their clothing items out of the same material.

Many clothing brands outsource their manufacturing process to countries within Asia where there are very few environmental regulations on how most clothing is being made. If the government were to install policies regarding US brands to make their clothing in the US or other countries with stricter regulations, environmental effects could be significantly lowered.

Consumers have valued quantity over quality which has inspired clothing companies to take shortcuts leading to environmental damage and textile waste. To lessen the effects of the textile industry, both consumers and producers need to alter their current consumption and production habits. By increasing consumer’s awareness of the dangers of fast fashion, people may grow to have a greater appreciation for the items in their closets. This appreciation can lead to viewing clothing once again as what it should be—a necessity not simply an accessory.

+8 Resources

Beall, A. (n.d.). Why clothes are so hard to recycle. BBC Future. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200710-why-clothes-are-so-hard-to-recycle.
Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). EPA. https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/textiles-material-specific-data.
Hartline, N.L., Bruce, N.J., Karba S.N., Ruff, E.O., Sonar, S.U., and Holden, P.A. (2016) Microfiber Masses Recovered from Conventional Machine Washing of New or Aged Garments, Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 50, No.21, pp.11532-11538
Larnard, A. (2020, October 22). Where Do Clothes Go When Thrift Stores Don't Sell Them? The Emerald Review. http://emeraldreview.com/where-do-clothes-go-when-thrift-stores-dont-sell-them/.
Le, N. (2020, July 20). The Impact of Fast Fashion On the Environment - PSCI. Princeton University. https://psci.princeton.edu/tips/2020/7/20/the-impact-of-fast-fashion-on-the-environment.
Shank, M., & Bédat, M. (2020, September 25). Analysis: Fast fashion comes at a steep price for the environment. MSNBC. https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/analysis-fast-fashion-comes-steep-price-the-environment-msna852631.
Sustainable Fashion. (2019, September 13). Synthetic fibres used in 72% clothing items can sit in landfills for 200 years. Sustainable Fashion. https://www.sustainablefashion.earth/type/water/synthetic-fibres-used-in-72-clothing-items-can-sit-in-landfills-for-200-years/.
Ütebay, B., Çelik, P., & Çay, A. (2020, May 26). Textile Wastes: Status and Perspectives. IntechOpen. https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/71971.

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Textile Waste, Consumer Culture, and Corporate Greed