Preventing Fast Fashion from becoming Fast Trash

Clothing Recycling is a positive step, but it’s not a solution to the fast fashion crisis.  In fact, much of the clothing donated for reuse ends up being dumped.

According to the EPA, Americans are generating about ten times the amount of textile waste as we did sixty years ago, which translates to about five times more per capita, with the vast majority of it being incinerated or landfilled.  Over 15 million tons of clothing was thrown out in the U.S. 2018.

That’s a lot of environmental impact down the drain: The garment industry is a major contributor to global CO2 emissions, and is a huge consumer and polluter of water.  Fossil-fuel derived fabrics add vast amounts of microplastics to our waterways, threatening human and environmental health.  The production of natural fibers (like cotton and wool) is not environmentally-benign, either.  And as for fast fashion’s societal impacts of unfair labor practices, etc., that’s a whole other story!

With clothing prices so low that the average American consumer purchases a new item of clothing every 5.5 days, closet purging is commonplace and the amount of donations is escalating rapidly.  In fact, charities are struggling to keep up with the increasing volume of donations.  

Like charities nationwide, in the Washtenaw County, Michigan area, charities report that they generally sell less than half of what they receive, and are relying more and more on textile recyclers to buy their excess.  On the surface, this is a positive:  consumers feel good knowing their used clothing is finding a new life by someone with less means, and charities make a little money while keeping the items out of landfills. 

This “buy new, donate the old” concept is promoted by some fashion brands that offer to buy their customers’ used clothing, with promises to donate them to the needy, often in exchange for discounts on new orders.  But are those items collected really being reused? 

For instance, a major textile recycling company in Southeast Michigan reports that each week they ship about 200,000 pounds of textiles to six ports in several continents.  One of the ports – Iquique, Chile – made international news (including a National Geographic feature) due to the discovery that after sorting out the “good stuff,” vast amounts of clothing was being dumped in the Atacama Desert.  

Like other textile recyclers, this company does not share names of businesses that import their shipments.  This makes it impossible for the charities that supply them to track the donated goods and be confident they are being reused instead of dumped.

Despite assurances by this and other textile recyclers that almost all of the donated clothing items they ship overseas are being given a second life, there’s abundant photographic proof of dumped clothing at receiving ports around the world.  Who’s to say Southeast Michigan clothing isn’t in that mix?

For a community like Washtenaw County that wants to do the right thing, this situation is unacceptable.  To reverse the tide, we need to promote actions consistent with the waste management hierarchy.

For example:

1. Fewer new clothing purchases, through public education on

   1. Human and environmental health impacts of fast fashion

   2. Local and online sources of second-hand clothing

2. Cleaning and repair to increase garment longevity

   1. Public education on DIY repairs, and companies that offer repair services

   2. Creation of volunteer programs to fix donated items 

3. More local reuse vs. being shipped overseas

   1. Promotion of clothing swaps

   2. Establishment of weekly or monthly local flea markets

4. Greater transparency on the part of recyclers so garments can be tracked

   1. Consider proposals mandating transparency

   2. Reward with positive publicity recyclers that share details of their supply chain 

5. Promotion of companies that turn textile waste into usable material, e.g. insulation

   1. Both local, such as Nextiles in Detroit, and international, such as EcoFibra in Chile

6. Banning of textile waste from municipal trash

   1. Communicate with other municipalities such as Vancouver that are considering doing so

7. Clothing prices that reflect their true costs to society:

   1. Higher landfill tipping fees

   2. Volume-based trash services

   3. Living wages for garment workers

   4. Polluter pay strategies

   5. Removal of fossil fuel subsidies 

Of course we should not discourage donation of clothing discards.  But shedding light on the fact that “buy one, donate one” is not an even exchange environmentally-speaking may encourage more informed and thoughtful garment shopping (and care) on the part of those who want to do the right thing.

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