The big issue is so called “fast fashion,” cheaply made clothes put together in sweat shops for literal pennies and so poorly constructed you can really only wear them a few times before they fall apart. If they’re made of cotton or another natural fiber they needed a LOT of water and fossil fuels to grow and harvest, then fiber shipped to where the clothes are made is another ding against the climate, then shipped to stores, worn a few times then off to the landfill. They produce greenhouse gases as they decay too. If the clothes are made of polyester it’s even worse–fossil fuels are used to produce the fiber and when they end up in landfills they’re there for likely hundreds of years. Fast fashion is indefensible and people who support it need slapped.
If you consider The World Bank a reliable source, there’s this
- Every year the fashion industry uses 93 billion cubic meters of water — enough to meet the consumption needs of five million people.
- Around 20 % of wastewater worldwide comes from fabric dyeing and treatment.
- Of the total fiber input used for clothing, 87 % is incinerated or disposed of in a landfill.
- The fashion industry is responsible for 10 % of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. At this pace, the fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions will surge more than 50 % by 2030.
That may not put the clothing business on the top but as with all the major industries, the contribution is substantial
So, googling around, it appears this original figure comes from an EPA showing the total amount of textile waste generated in a year, divided by the US population. That got reworked into Americans throwing out 81 pounds a year, which is NOT the case.
75% of the typical thrift store I visit consists of clothes. Given that only a small percentage of discarded clothing goes to thrift stores, I can imagine the amount of discarded clothing is huge. Consider also how much clothing is sold. Pretty much an equal amount gets discarded. (There are a lot more clothing stores than thrift stores.) So perhaps the number isn’t exactly correct, but it seems in the ballpark.
Doesn’t come from me, since I hardly buy any new clothes unless absolutely necessary.
That’s a shame, but it’s really bad stalking weather for the next few months, anyway.
Care to elaborate on that?
I mean, yeah, in a clickbaity way, “The average American throws away 80 lbs of clothes a year,” may not be technically the case, but it is more clickbaity than “The average American produces 80 lbs of textile waste a year,” which for all intents and purposes (saving planet, CO2, wasting water yada-yada) is the case, isn’t it?
Because it’s not just waste from individual Americans. It’s all waste meaning from clothing manufacturers, retail, etc.
I have a hard time even with that. In my NY experience, people that are fashion trendy hold on to clothes forever or donate them. Simply throwing them away would be a distant third.
We would need some rules. There are things better left unseen - by anybody.
Ok, you talked me into it. I’ll keep stalking.
That’s true. It’s especially hard to find shrubbery to hide in when you live in the north.
Can you link to a number for all textile waste? All I see so far is the 87% of all clothing goes into landfills/burned up, but not what the total number of production or waste is.
Judging by the dumpster contents I see at my building when taking my own garbage out I do believe there are people taking up the “slack” for those of us who almost never discard clothing.
Especially if the clothes were expensive. Cheap mass-market clothing is what gets tossed in the trash and LEFT in the trash.
People who buy valuable high-end clothing know that they can get $$ for that stuff from consignment shops and similar services. If they can’t be bothered to consign/re-sell it, they know they can just leave it in their building’s laundry room or similar with a sign saying FREE and it will disappear.
People who are rich enough not to know how to dispose of valuable high-end clothing other than throwing it in the trash don’t toss their own trash. They give discarded garments to their maid, and she knows better than to throw them in the trash.
I’m not entirely sure what 80 lb of clothing even looks like. The bag I check for air travel only hits the 50 lb limit if I have it jammed packed and supplemented with some books. I don’t know if suitcase sizes are in any way standard.
Wait, didn’t we just establish that the 81 lbs was simply the total amount of textile waste divided by the number of Americans?
If so, then that includes things like carpeting thrown out after building renovation, draperies, towels, car seats and carpets from wrecked vehicles, stuffed toys, old backpacks, ground cloth, medical waste (bandages, etc), tapestries, fishing nets, rope of all soets, matteess covers…
Here’s the way I looked at it:
- A person can’t throw out more clothes than they buy (though they can throw out less, if worn-out clothes end up being turned into quilts or cleaning supplies or whatever, or resold used, but we’ll ignore that).
- A typical garment might weigh perhaps half a pound.
- To get to 81 pounds a year, then, the average American would need to buy over three garments every week.
- While some people might actually buy that much, that’s got to be near the upper limit. The average must be much less.
You just summed up exactly what I was going to say. I also thought of Hurricane Ian and similar disasters, and how much from them, in total, ends up in a landfill.
I personally don’t think anything like this away unless it really is garbage (got paint on it, that kind of thing.) My “holey” t-shirts and socks go to the animal shelter, where THEY throw it away when it’s too worn to be used as animal bedding.
Thanks for that. It seems like that’s what they did. I’m going to look at it some more later because a quick glance shows some variance depending on which chart you look at.
Exactly. That’s part of why we have the trickle down fashion trends, where what’s trendy on the coasts may not make it to mid America for a year or more.
That’s why I want to look over the EPA cite above. One part claims to be just clothing and footwear, but at first glance the numbers are slightly different on different pages.
I’ve been on Wikipedia so much I saw a (by who?) after that.
I recently heard a More or Less Podcast episode on the BBC about how much energy and water go into the textile industry. (The podcast series is about what the statistics behind headlines actually mean, often debunking poor reporting). They went over the idea that the textile industry uses absurd amounts of water and energy. Evidently, the amount of water reported used includes rainfall, not just additional irrigation. In other words, it’s been greatly exaggerated and repeated.
Do you ever donate your unwanted clothes?
Wow–I might buy 20# of clothes a year, and if the old ones get discarded they become rags or get donated. My technical gear doesn’t really wear out, although I’ve outgrown a few pieces (groan). Of course I don’t give a shit what I look like–I’m almost 100% Duluth Trading at this point. And I go through a lot of rags (which adds to the dumpster stats I guess).