How to reduce your fashion waste and environmental impact

Photo by Tamara Bellis

Over recent years the fashion industry has changed drastically; fast-fashion is now leading the growth in clothing consumption with clothing production doubling between 2000 and 2015 whilst the lifetime of the garments is decreasing. Mass produced clothing focusing on fast inventory turnarounds to capture everchanging trends. Let’s talk about figuring out the carbon footprint of your clothing consumption and a few tips for lowering it.  

The circular economy model stems from the idea of keeping resources in a loop to optimise their use and value. The clothing industry is globally one of the most dominant industries and highest value industries due to its product value, employment and market size, and it has doubled in production size in the last two decades. Each year, 150 billion fashion items are produced globally, making the textile sector a considerable polluter with a detrimentally significant carbon footprint that many consumers are unaware of. The carbon footprint of the clothing industry is something that must not be ignored and with the increase in fashion overproduction and overconsumption, it’s necessary to stay informed on ways to curate a sustainable wardrobe that can also be very stylish. Something as simple as "extending the life of clothes by an extra nine months of active use would reduce carbon, water, and waste footprints by around 20-30% each".

What makes up the clothing carbon footprint?

Photo by George Evans

Extraction and manufacturing 

The most significant contributor to the clothing carbon footprint is from the production of clothing fibres, their production requires a substantial amount of water, energy, fertilisers, and land use. As well as this, there is the manufacturing process; consisting of the weaving, dyeing, cutting, and sewing which all use large amounts of energy, chemicals, and also the disposal of the fabric offcuts. With many companies having a global presence and reach, another significant contributor is transportation - the raw materials and the final clothing products often travel extensive distances all around the world. Packaging of the products also contributes to the industry's carbon emissions. 

Consumption impacts

Once the consumer has received their items there is then the energy usage of washing, drying and ironing the clothes. Lastly, when people eventually dispose of the clothing that they no longer want, around 87% globally, goes into landfills despite the clothing still having 70% of its useful life left. Clothing made from synthetics such as Polyester “accumulate in landfills because conventional PET is non biodegradable” which can release harmful additives and microfibres which pollute the land, water and air.

Calculating your carbon footprint 

This might seem daunting but there are many ways you can mitigate your impact and reduce your clothing footprint. To make a start there are many online resources that you can use to calculate your clothing carbon footprint, I would recommend Thredup. It asks you various questions about your clothing consumption and habits and then provides you with tailored suggestions on ways you can reduce your fashion footprint. 

What else can you do?  

• Upcycle your clothes - this includes repurposing clothes such as transforming unwanted clothes into something else and clothes customisation. 

• Support circular fashion - utilise brands that offer schemes where they accept old clothes back and buy second hand items to keep existing clothes in circulation. Ensure that brands with take back schemes are reusing or recycling the clothing in the right ways and not burning them or sending the clothes to landfill. 

• Donate or sell your unwanted clothes - donating and selling your clothes gives them a second life and reduces the demand for brand new items.

• Buy less clothes - when you are wanting to buy a new item question how much you need this or how often you will wear it.

• Trade clothes - swap clothes with friends and family and host and attend clothes swaps. Clothes Swap & Style have free monthly clothes swap events in Sydney, Australia. You can get free tips from them on how to host your own clothes swap.

• Repair your clothes - rather than replacing damaged clothes with minor problems, you can repair them, this extends the life of your garments.

• Rent or borrow clothes - instead of buying new clothes for one off special events you can rent them, it is a fraction of the cost and helps optimise the usage of an item of clothing.

• Educate yourself and others - share your knowledge with friends and family and stay connected with developments in circular fashion. Support sustainable brands - when you need new clothing, support the companies that prioritise sustainability and are making clothes designed for long term wear. You can know if a brand is not greenwashing when they are not transparent about how many garments they manufacture each year and refuse to disclose their information about their supply chain. 

• Avoid fast fashion - Instead you could try shopping for preloved clothing. Fast fashion produces clothing at artificially low costs using unsustainable factors such as modern slavery, planned obsolescence and poor-quality materials. Their low quality encourages short-term wear. These clothing items have also been proven to have toxic chemicals such as pesticides and flame retardants in the manufacturing process which can seriously impact your health as prolonged contact with the skin can absorb the chemicals into your body.

• Restyle your clothes - this is using your creativity to wear one item of clothing in a variety of different ways through layering and accessorising, for different types of occasions which is demonstrated in this article.

Photo by Tamara Bellis

Article by Talisa Sharma. Talisa has a passion for business and enjoys educating and promoting sustainability and carbon friendly initiatives.

Earth Day; the threat of plastics on human & environmental health

Image credit: Nick Fewings via Unsplash

Everyday should be Earth Day as she consistently blesses us with an abundant supply of everything we need to survive, thrive, have good health & wellbeing. However, it’s sufficient to say we continue to wreck many elements of this beautiful planet. What we often fail to realise is that as we destroy the planet, we’re destroying ourselves - our health in particular.

The amount of plastic waste produced globally is expected to nearly triple by 2060, with around half ending up in landfill and less than a fifth recycled, according to a 2022 OECD report. It projects that global plastics consumption will rise from 460 million tonnes in 2019 to 1,231 million tonnes in 2060 at the current rate of plastics production and use. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. 

In Australia, 3.4 million tonnes of plastic is consumed each year which is equivalent to 72 Sydney Harbour Bridges. By 2049-50, this is expected to rise to 9.7 million tonnes. By 2050, the amount of plastic consumed in Australia will more than double. Only 14% of plastic waste is kept out of landfill.

Microplastics are ubiquitous - in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Scientific studies estimate that humans ingest between 0.1 grams to 5 grams – which is equivalent to an entire credit card’s worth of microplastics every week. The microplastics are a vessel where these toxic chemicals enter our system and get into our bloodstream, tissues and digestive system. Microplastics are being found in the placenta of newborn babies. Plastics are associated with diseases such as birth defects, cancer, endocrine toxicity and lung cancer.

Majority of people in Australia and the rest of the world are unaware or it’s very much out of sight, out of mind for them and they just don’t care about the plastics waste and pollution crisis. For some, they are just trying to imminently survive economic and other life crises, therefore, the earth’s wellbeing is naturally less of a priority. For people with the bandwidth to take action, knowledge of health issues associated with microplastics can be a much stronger motivator towards action and advocacy than just pollution alone.

Health risks can affect everyone and therefore is a more relevant conversation to almost every individual. This is why circularity and environmental movements will likely have even more effective results in the plastics pollution discourse if the health aspect of it is the leading topic of educational and awareness campaigns and conversations. Of course this is not to be used as a scare tactic, so it it’s critical to verify any statistics and data used in these endeavours.

These are some statistics and information on plastics and human health from a workshop I attended by Minderoo Films / Minderoo Foundation:

• There are over 16,000 chemicals used in plastics. 4,200 chemicals are considered to be highly hazardous to human health, with 11,000 chemicals not yet assessed

• Due to the huge volume of plastics in everyday life, the impacts of these chemicals are almost unavoidable

• There is evidence that plastics may cause obesity, lower IQ and hypertension.

• Data shows a drop in male sperm count of 1% per year for 5 decades, future generations will likely experience infertility

• Significant increase in heart disease and stroke in people who have higher levels of micro and nano plastics

• If we stopped using these chemicals, we would see a rapid change in exposure (the chemicals are short lived in the body).

 I recommend learning more about the impact of plastics on health if you can. Minderoo has some great resources, and you can read up on from here.

The Australia Institute Plastic Waste in Australia report (page 4) from January 2024 covers some health risks.

As we celebrate the earth, we can remind ourselves that our bodies came from and will eventually return to the earth. It’s part of us and we are part of it. As we take care of the earth, it takes care of us.

The fashion TRENDmill explained

Nina Gbor wearing a secondhand ensemble with items from an op shop and consignment store acquired in 2017 and 2019. Image credit: Pepper Street Photography

I've been into sustainable fashion since I was 15 years old - wearing, promoting, styling and living the preloved lifestyle. This was long before sustainable fashion was a global movement and long before the term ‘sustainable fashion’ was a buzz word for nearly every brand and flocks of influencers. I abhorred fashion trends from a young age. I couldn’t understand why so many people clung tenaciously to a made-up reality where everyone is expected to wear the same trending styles of clothing until the dictators of fashion decided it was time to decree the next short-lived trend. This is fashion’s Jedi mind trick.

The fashion industry

In 2019, the size of the global apparel and footwear market was $1.9 trillion USD. It’s been projected to reach $3.3 trillion dollars by 2030. Several reasons exist as to why this industry is so lucrative. There’s the craftmanship, art, design, creativity, skills, beauty, artisanry and of course practicality that leads to the production of items that we love and find useful. In many instances, most or perhaps even all of these talents deserve to garner significant profits. But then there’s the dark side of the industry that has been inducing tremendous profits through atrocious practices. This side has been thriving on extreme capitalism with no concern for humans, animals nor the planet. The sole purpose is to amass huge profits at all costs. This is why we currently have 100 – 150 billion garments being manufactured each year, with only an estimated 8 billion humans to use them. It’s unsurprising that about 87% of items manufactured each year end up in landfill or incinerated.  

Where fashion trends went wrong

This unchecked, environmentally degrading side of fashion has been able to grow and thrive so expeditiously in part due to the use of fashion trends. For probably about a century, following fashion trends was a significant part of social culture and clothing. It was portrayed in different forms. Fashion collections produced by brands have traditionally been designed and manufactured based on the four western weather seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. The trends generally adhered to this as well. Fast fashion hijacked and exacerbated the idea of trends and took it from about 4 trend cycle collections a year, to about 110 trend and microtrend collections a year. Naturally the time from one trend to the next decreased in the process. This is one of the factors that lead to over 100 billion garments being manufactured each year. Not to mention the tsunami of environmental and social justice issues from this overproduction and overconsumption.

Fashion’s environmental and social injustice issues

For too many decades, the grody side of the fashion industry has been using clever big-budget advertising, marketing, influencers and celebrities, to successfully manipulate people into feeling that they’re not enough unless they’re wearing the latest fashion trends. They’ve been able to control this aspect of social culture and use it to catapult their profits by somehow coercing many people to consistently buy apparel they don’t need. This is all in the name of aspiring to fit into this warped system that requires allegiance to whatever is trending in the moment.

With more trends being put out each year, planned obsolescence by clothing brands has become rampant. This means clothes are being designed for limited use with shorter life spans so that consumers are forced or encouraged to repeat purchases because the initially purchased items are not durable. The garments made by many fashion brands are increasingly being made from cheaper, poorer quality materials such as polyester. When something is damaged, it’s often less costly to buy a new one than to repair it. Products made in this manner very often end up in landfill in relatively short periods of time. In other words, these clothes are made to be disposable. This is the take-make-waste system that exists in fashion and several other industries.

The cost of the trends

The environmental damage from this excessive oversupply occurs at scale through deforestation, ocean and freshwater pollution, destruction of ecosystems and animal habitats, desertification, toxic chemical loading in soil and water bodies, etc. UN Climate Change states that annually, 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases are emitted from textiles production. By some calculations, sector emissions are projected to increase by more than 60% by 2030. In addition to that, there’s the devastating problem of modern slavery where garment workers are exploited, abused and drastically underpaid so that brands can make extreme profits. According to the 2022 Ethical Fashion Report conducted by The World Baptist Aid, 60 million people work in the global fashion industry. To give context to the general nature of social injustice and inequality in the industry, only 10% of companies surveyed in the report could show evidence of paying liveable wages to garment workers.

The personal style con

In the last few years, mainstream fashion began to drop the habit and promotion of following fashion trends. Embracing one’s own personal style became the thing to do. At the outset this shift appeared very positive for the environment and consumers alike. However, it didn't take long for fast fashion to find a way to also capitalise on the personal style wave by getting people to 'find or express their personal style' through constantly buying lots of fast fashion.

The shocking and sad truth is that following fashion trends never stopped. It simply changed form. OVERCONSUMPTION HAS BECOME THE LONGSTANDING TREND. In fact, overconsumption is our modern cultural trend. We’re consuming 400% more clothing than we did 20 years ago, while the length of time we use the garments has fallen by almost 40%. It’s no longer only about buying trends and microtrends to fit in with everyone else and the culture. Now the normal thing is to just buy stuff period because it’s easy, cheap or convenient to do so, then throw it away when you’re bored with it. And then buy other brand new stuff again and repeat the cycle. Fast fashion has made clothes more affordable than ever before.

The fashion TRENDmill explained

The fashion TRENDmill (or fashion treadmill) is a phrase I came up with in 2016 to describe this modern culture of mindless overproduction and overconsumption of clothing that has become too common and normalised in our world. With these factors being the trend, this conveyor belt system is fuelled by the continuous take-make-waste linear cycle on steroids.   

We take (extract raw materials or virgin resources from the environment at enormous rates far beyond what we need). Then make (manufacture far more garments than is necessary or will be used). Followed by waste (majority of clothes end up in landfill relatively quickly). Disposability of clothes is embedded and expected in this cycle either through the culture of it or through planned obsolescence. There’s little or no consideration for reusing or prolonging the life of the textiles or the damage the TRENDmill system inflicts on the planet and its inhabitants.  

The TRENDmill and general overconsumption

There’s a very strong throughline of the fashion trendmill concept with other waste streams such as food, furniture, electronics, automobiles, the built environment and hospitality.

We’re consuming more products than we ever have in human history. Nearly A$66 trillion worth of stuff is being purchased every year globally which is the equivalent of an estimated A$2 million per second. These purchases include the gamut of material stuff and possibly services. The world’s use of material resources has increased ten-fold since 1900 and is projected to double again by 2030. It’s been projected that the consumer class will reach 5 billion people by the year 2030, meaning 1.4 billion more people will have discretionary spending power which explains why consumption rates are expected to double unless we get off the TRENDmill.  

We’re consuming our way into our own extinction

With these enormous levels of manufacturing and consumption, environmental degradation is at an all time high. This comes with things like toxic chemical loading on soil and water and extreme plastics pollution. These and other factors have been known to have fatal impacts on human health. As production keeps increasing, it looks as if we’re consuming our way into our own extinction.

A drastic reduction of natural resource use is critical. We need cultures and systems based on environmental sustainability and circular economy principles. There are colossal opportunities for us to stop the rapid flow of materials to landfill and reuse or repurpose these materials instead. And in the process, only take what we need from the earth. It will make our lives healthier, save the lives of animal species, reduce biodiversity loss, give us cleaner water, a healthier planet amongst other benefits.

How to get off the fashion trendmill

We currently have enough clothing on the planet to cater for the next 6 generations of humans. From the start of my sustainable fashion career, I've always talked about ignoring trends in favour of finding and expressing your personal style for the long term through secondhand garments (and not fast fashion). Secondhand clothing includes contemporary styles and clothes from nearly every fashion era dating back almost a century. One of the coolest ways to curate a sustainable wardrobe is to mix and match styles from one or multiple fashion eras to create your own individual style. It’s likely that this one-of-a-kind wardrobe tailored to your preferences will have any or all of these outcomes:

 1. keeping your clothes for longer periods of time because you always look great even with very little effort

2. saving financial resources because you’re buying less brand new stuff

3. evolving to the best or desired version of yourself using secondhand clothes.

Getting off the fashion trendmill helps reduce clothing waste because in a sustainably curated wardrobe, the outfits suit your body, lifestyle and personality. With these aspects fulfilled, hopefully the temptation to consistently buy new clothes or fast fashion all the time can begin to fade or get eliminated altogether.

Getting off the trendmill on a systemic level

Ultimately, we need to implement circular economy principles into textiles and other industries. Things will shift when we change our relationship with clothing and the culture surrounding consumption of other material things. Here's how:

Reuse - restyle, repair, resell, repurpose, buy secondhand, redesign, swap, hire, rent, borrow, upcycle

Buy new from ethical & sustainable brands - (Not brands that greenwash). Patronise brands that are transparent about how many garments they manufacture, their entire supply chain and their manufacturing processes. Also buy from small, local and emerging designers

Advocate for system change - simply by living an authentic sustainable lifestyle when and where you’re able even if you don't proclaim it publicly. You can also gently and kindly nudge your immediate circles and communities into sustainable habits or run community events like clothes or other item swaps that inspire people to action. You can even push for policy and legislation change through your local and federal political representatives.

*Perhaps the most imperative option is for us to shift our focus away from filling our lives with material stuff and ascribing such extreme value to material things. Placing higher value on experiences and more positive developments could be the new and hopefully permanent wave.

Secondhand September: the co-dependency of fast fashion and secondhand fashion

It's Secondhand September again this year which feels a little redundant for me because almost everyday has been a "secondhand September" day for me since I was a kid! As a matter of fact, about 99% of my extensive, eclectic wardrobe is secondhand.

Nevermind though because now that the world is finally catching on to the glory of preloved clothing, we have to keep the momentum going! Secondhand September gets bigger every year. So here's my all secondhand and thrifted ensemble: a colourful long coat, a pink dress, a pink bag, red sunglasses and ivory-coloured boots!

According to thredUP's 2022 Resale Report:

• 70% of consumers say it’s easier to shop secondhand now than it was 5 years ago.

• Resale is expected to grow 16 times faster than the broader retail clothing sector by 2026.

• The global secondhand apparel market will grow 127% by 2026 – 3X faster than the global apparel market overall!

On paper this is great news because secondhand is more 'sustainable' than new (fast) fashion. However for something to be secondhand, it has to be new first. Over 100 billion garments are still being manufactured each year and approximately 84% of it is still going to landfill in spite of the rise in secondhand fashion sales.

It's so cool to see so many people who would never wear preloved hoping onto this wagon. However, it's not sustainable, even for a thriving 'sustainable' secondhand market if over 100 billion garments are still being manufactured to cater for the secondhand market.

Retail brands being aware of the popularity of preloved, use the secondhand selling trend to justify their overproduction. As in, they can keep over producing because their customers will resell.

We have to get off this (secondhand) fashion TRENDmill (a phrase I made up) by quitting overconsumption of retail fashion in the first place. There's already an abundance of clothes on the planet including vintage! But we need to remember the garment workers who make these garments and insist that brands pay garment workers liveable wages with decent quality of work life, so that workers are not left out in the cold when we stop overconsuming fashion.

The first step is demanding full transparency of brands' supply chain through laws. Then adding laws that ensure liveable wages, equity, redundancy packages and additional support for workers. Big brands can afford it.

Photos by @hmp_photography._

 ♥ Nina Gbor

Insta: @eco.styles

Resolving the waste crisis

Image credit: Chantel Bann

I was out on a walk the other day and spotted a ‘FREE’ sign in front of someone’s house above a couple of art frames, a lamp, clothes rack, mirror, a chair and some books. It’s pretty common to see household items on the sidewalk, free for passers-by to take. I’ve come across everything from sofas to tvs, suitcases, washing machines, clothes, printers, desks, electronics and even fresh fruit.

I found out about a community Facebook group called Street Bounty Inner West where locals in a suburb can post reusable items they see in the street for anyone to pick up. The group aims to “promote the recycling and reuse of materials, keeping kerbs cleaner, landfill emptier and wallets fuller.” Movements like this divert so much stuff from going to landfills. However, sometimes these items can get damaged on the sidewalk by exposure to weather conditions: rain, extreme sun and wind. And/or eventually still end up in landfill if nobody takes it.

Images credit top row L to R: Kimberly Scott, Fi Paskulich, Anna Bailey, Obaydah Vetter. Second row L to R: Nicky Lewis, Sarah Bea, Carolyn Veg Ienna and Vanessa Jimenez.

The world’s waste

According to The World Counts, the world dumps 2.12 billion tonnes of waste each year. If it were all put on trucks, it would stretch around the earth 24 times! Part of the reason why this figure is so high is that 99% of the stuff we purchase is trashed within 6 months. According to the World Bank, global waste is expected to grow to 3.40 billion tonnes by 2050. A huge majority of the world’s waste is generated by countries in the global North like Australia, the US, the UK, and Canada.

According to Australia’s National Waste Report 2020, Australians generated around  74.1 million tonnes of waste in 2018-19 (this includes household waste, organics, masonry materials and ash). Community efforts like Street Bounty that salvage household waste from landfills by donating to random strangers are a noble act. Many movements like this are doing fantastic work in tackling the waste problem but they can only capture a tiny fraction of the overall waste that exists.

Planned obsolescence

It’s fair to say that planned obsolescence is probably the biggest factor behind the tremendously high amount of waste. It’s a modern capitalist trend that’s been a massive catalyst for manifesting more waste in the last few decades than humanity has ever witnessed. Planned obsolescence is a strategy during manufacture that ensures products are deliberately designed with an artificially limited useful life or designed to eventually slow down or become obsolete. This guarantees that consumers will regularly want to replace these products in the future. The purpose of this strategy is for corporations to gain stable and increased profits. The outcome is a massive increase in waste to landfills and huge greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and environmental degradation.  

Image credit: How-To Geek

Common waste streams

E-waste

Electronic waste (e-waste) is the quickest growing domestic waste stream. On a global scale, we generate over 50 million tonnes of e-waste each year. Only 20% of this is formally recycled. That comes to about 7.3 kilograms per person and the equivalent in weight to 350 cruise ships. The e-waste produced annually is worth over $62.5 billion. A lot of e-waste is toxic and gets exported to poorer countries in the global South where they end up polluting the environment in these countries and also in their landfills. 

The average Australian household produces about 73 kg of e-waste a year. With a projection of a global total e-waste increase to 74.7 million tonnes (almost twice the amount of new e-waste in just 16 years). Planned obsolescence is a big feature in the electronics industry.  

In 2018, Italy fined Samsung and Apple for purposely slowing down older models of their phones. Their plan was for people to get annoyed with the slowness of their phones to the point where they were forced to buy the newest and much more expensive models.

Image credit: Carolyn Veg Ienna

Furniture waste

With the popularity of flatpack furniture over the last few decades, there’s been a boom in furniture waste. When people are relocating, it can be more convenient to throw away old or damaged furniture instead of repairing or paying to move them to the new location.

Each year, Americans throw out more than 12 million tons of furniture and furnishings, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Only a small percentage is recycled. And in Australia, households dispose of around 24 kg of wooden furniture each year.

Image credit: Blake Milne

Images credit: Bee Yolanda, Clare Marshall, Jobi-Zane Pixus and Tom.

Waste from fashion & textiles

We’re producing about 150 billion garments a year with only 7.8 billion humans. It’s not surprising that 84% of all new clothing produced ends up in landfills each year. Fast fashion is to blame for these alarming figures.

Fast fashion brands through clever marketing amongst other things manipulate consumers into buying new clothes every few days or every week. These clothes usually get thrown out very quickly as trash and a huge portion is exported to countries in the global South where they eventually pollute those environments. Overconsumption is a modern cultural trend that’s detrimental to people and the planet. Fashion trends are one of the things that fuel fashion waste.

Image credit: CALPIRG

Solving the waste crisis

Australia has a national target of recovering 80% of waste by 2030. To make ambitious goals like this in Australia and other countries a reality, we’ll have to do a lot more than sidewalk donations. It’s so necessary to break the planet-destroying linear cycle of stuff that goes from retail to buyer then landfill in less than a year. In spite of planned obsolescence and our behaviours around consumption, many items are still useful and can be repurposed. A couple of ideas:

1. Make profits for yourself and charities

Reselling has always been a phenomenal way to divert waste from landfills and make a profit. However, CharityBay is next level! On this platform, you can do both of these things and help charities at the same time. People can sell items and donate some or all profits to a chosen charity. Imagine if all the stuff abandoned on the street and the useable stuff sent to landfill were resold for charity.  

2. Rescue, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose

There are many community groups like the Street Bounty Inner West group that support waste reduction. You might find similar groups through a search on social media platforms. If you can’t find one for your local community then create one.

With a little love, imagination and a makeover, many items have the potential for a magical transformation into something ‘new’, useful and maybe even beautiful. Imagine what our societies would be like if repairing and upcycling were as much a cultural habit as overconsumption?

Image credit: Imran Zainal © Imran’s Ark via iProperty

3. Legislation and policy change

Local community action is very powerful but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. We have to have laws in effect that ban planned obsolescence. And

• hold corporations accountable for ensuring durability and lifelong repair guarantee in the products they make

•  limit the number of goods manufactured to a reasonable number in harmony with planetary resources and product demand / usage

•  hold corporations accountable if they do not comply with these laws.

 ♥ Nina Gbor

Insta: @eco.styles