What should we do with our clothing?

By Amelia Kondor

Earth day passed somewhat recently, and you may have noticed the Environmental Club’s posters up around the school. More importantly, you might have noticed or participated in one of their annual clothing swaps. Trying to prevent clothing waste isn’t something to attempt only for Earth Day, though. What are some of the ways we can take action to prevent this waste? Is clothing recycling really all it’s cracked up to be, and if not, what are some alternatives?

“Making fashion circular,” is something often proposed when trying to find a solution to our current waste problem. Essentially, the problem with the way that society deals with clothing currently is that it has a linear life cycle. The textile industry is designed to produce new clothes that we wear – and it does a great job. Yes, there are plenty of issues in this process, like the exploitation of workers, but tons upon tons of clothing is created every year. More than 100 billion items of clothing are produced globally, according to some estimates (Santi). The issue with this system is that no part of the textile industry was designed to deal with clothing after it was worn to the point of uselessness.

Clothing recycling is starting to become more prevalent, in the sense that we hear about it more, but not in actual efficacy. While, “Just 1% of recycled clothes are turned back into new garments,” the UN estimates that, “[the] fashion industry is estimated to be responsible for 8-10% of global carbon emissions” (Santi). There are a few reasons for this. First, clothing is very hard to recycle, because of buttons, zippers, and other complications from construction (Sanders). Second, the actual makeup of a lot of clothing makes it hard to make new garments from. Because most clothing is made of a blend of materials, like cotton and polyester, it becomes hard to recycle it, because the materials are not isolated. This becomes even more difficult the more even the blend is. For example, something that is 99% cotton would be easier to recycle than something 60% cotton 40% polyester. One Swedish pulp producer that recycles clothing, Renewcell, “can only recycle clothes that are made of cotton, with an allowance of up to just 5% non-cotton content” (Santi). So, physically recycling is a promising future, but it isn’t very viable for most people right now. What about donating old clothes?

Check out this flowchart to find out what might be happening to your clothing when donated in Vancouver. From it, we can see that around a quarter is returned to our community, while less than 15% ends up in the “disposal” rectangle at the bottom of the flow chart. This paints a generous picture of what actually happens to our clothes. One branch of the chart, where a lot of donated clothes end up, is titled “Global Reuse Markets.” Essentially, this is us selling clothing to other countries. This can be detrimental to their own textile industries, and makes it very hard to track how much of our donated clothing is wasted, because it is being incinerated or thrown away in other countries. All in all, donating is a good option. While the future is cloudy for donated clothes, and it’s hard to tell exactly where they’ll end up, it is certainly a better option than simply throwing it out, which is what happens to more than half the clothing in North America (Jay).

The best thing to prevent clothing waste is to simply buy less clothing. Any clothing you purchase, no matter how carefully and thoughtfully you dispose of it, will ultimately lead to waste. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be buying clothing; it’s a necessary part of our lives. This also doesn’t mean that every piece of clothing we buy needs to be incredibly expensive, and that we need to research every company’s ethics before making a purchase. Those are unrealistic expectations to put on anyone. What it means is that we need to be more mindful in our consumption of clothing. While brands may try to convince us that offers are going to end and we need to act fast, what we really need to do is slow down, or our environment as we know it is going to end.

Hey Temp students! Are you interested in sustainability in fashion? Check out teams for an opportunity to be involved in a district-wide climate fashion show.

Works Cited

Jay, Paul. “Here's where your donated clothing really ends up.” CBC News, CBC/Radio-Canada, 29 May 2018, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/donated-clothing-where-it-ends-up-1.4662023. Accessed May 31 2024.

Santi, Ana. “Can clothes ever be fully recycled?” BBC, 27 Feb. 2023, www.bbc.com/future/article/20230227-how-to-recycle-your-clothes. Accessed 26 May 2024.

Sanders, Rachel. “What's the climate-friendly way to get rid of worn-out clothes and linens?” CBC News, CBC/Radio-Canada, 02 May 2024, www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-clothing-disposal-1.7191603. Accessed 26 May 2024.