Sustainability in the textiles/fashion industry
Waste in the Textiles Industry and Environmental Impacts
The amount of waste in the textiles industry is increasing and this is a large contributing factor to climate change and global warming. The following websites and reports contain useful information that can be used to help inform your investigation on this topic:
The Council of Textiles and Fashion Industries Australia have created a movement for sustainability, with many different initiatives that you can read about here.
There are five phases in the life cycle of textiles products, and each have their own impact on the environment:
- National Association of Charitable Recycling Organisations, including this excellent report - Sources of Textiles Waste in Australia
- HSC Online - Waste as pollution, recycling and sustainability in the Australian textile industry
- Craft Australia - Sustainability - the future for fashion textiles
- Textile Beat - Clothing in a Material World and The Slow Clothing Project
- Daily Infographic - How many pounds of Textiles are trashed every year?
The Council of Textiles and Fashion Industries Australia have created a movement for sustainability, with many different initiatives that you can read about here.
There are five phases in the life cycle of textiles products, and each have their own impact on the environment:
- Material - where the fibre is manufactured (including growing of natural fibres or creating synthetic fibres)
- Production - where the product is made
- Transport - is part of all stages where products are transported around
- Use - where the consumer uses the product (for example, washing and drying the product)
- Disposal - where the product is discarded at the end of its life cycle.
The Environmental Impact of the Cotton T-shirt |
How Textile Recycling Works (BCR Global Textiles) |
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700 gallons = 2650 litres - that's the equivalent of 33 baths!
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Documentary: Unravel - This is the final resting place of your cast off clothing
‘Maybe the water is too expensive to wash them’: how Indian women recast and recycle the clothes the West throws away.
- Meghna Gupta
"When people in the West throw their clothes away, their cast-offs often go on a journey east, across the oceans, to India’s industrial interior. From the Kutch District of western India to the northern city of Panipat, garment recyclers turn into yarn the huge bales of clothes that come from people and places distinctly strange. With little exposure to Western culture other than the Discovery Channel, the garment recyclers rely on their imagination and the rumours that travel with the cast-offs to create an an intriguing perspective on the West."
Watch the video Unravel here.
- Meghna Gupta
"When people in the West throw their clothes away, their cast-offs often go on a journey east, across the oceans, to India’s industrial interior. From the Kutch District of western India to the northern city of Panipat, garment recyclers turn into yarn the huge bales of clothes that come from people and places distinctly strange. With little exposure to Western culture other than the Discovery Channel, the garment recyclers rely on their imagination and the rumours that travel with the cast-offs to create an an intriguing perspective on the West."
Watch the video Unravel here.
Emma Watson on sustainable fashion
Emma Watson has made a commitment to only wear sustainable fashion on the red carpet - called the Green Carpet challenge. This includes wearing pieces again, which usually celebrities never do. See more information here: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/03/fashion/emma-watson-sustainable-fashion/
She also began designing her own ethical clothing line with People Tree.
She also began designing her own ethical clothing line with People Tree.
Ekocycle: Recycled. Reborn. We are the #REGENERATION
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"Waste is only waste if we waste it"
- Will.i.am "Will.i.am and the CocoCola Company have joined efforts to create the EKOCYCLE brand, their shared ambition to motivate brands to make things in part from recycled materials and make sustainable living cool." https://www.youtube.com/user/EKOCYCLE 
Image: http://www.ekocycle.com/
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Image: http://www.haberdashernyc.com/2013/04/26/levis-501-waste-less-x-ekocycle/ |
Rhetorical FactoryRhetorical Factory is a textiles recycling company. They take used, discarded textiles products and repurpose them into new fashion for sale. The purpose of this factory is to create awareness of the huge waste there is in the fashion industry. Currently in America, only around 15% of the 1.3 million tonnes of waste textiles per year is recycled. Bethany Adams, the owner of Rhetorical Factory, is one woman, trying to make a difference.
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