Key Insights
Essential data points from our research
The fashion industry generates an estimated 92 million tonnes of textile waste annually
Textile waste is projected to increase by 60% by 2030 to an estimated 148 million tonnes annually
The equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned every second
The average American throws away approximately 81.5 pounds of clothes every year
Consumers keep items for about half as long as they did 15 years ago
Some garments are discarded after just seven to ten wears
4% of the global waste stream consists solely of textiles making it a major landfill contributor
Decomposing clothing releases methane a powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere
Fashion waste in landfills contributes to soil and groundwater pollution through leachate
Less than 1% of materials used to produce clothing are recycled into new clothing
12% of textile waste is downcycled into lower value applications like mattress stuffing or insulation
60% of all clothing produced is made from synthetic fibers like polyester which do not decay
Approximately 15 million items of used clothing arrive in Accra Ghana every week
40% of the clothing imported into Ghana's Kantamanto market becomes waste immediately
The Atacama Desert in Chile receives approximately 39000 tons of discarded clothing annually
Consumer Behavior & Discard Rates
- The average American throws away approximately 81.5 pounds of clothes every year
- Consumers keep items for about half as long as they did 15 years ago
- Some garments are discarded after just seven to ten wears
- 30% of clothes in UK wardrobes have not been worn for at least a year
- One in three young women in the UK consider clothes old after wearing them once or twice
- The average consumer buys 60% more clothing in 2014 than in 2000
- Nearly 60% of consumers admit to having more clothes than they need
- Around 30% of unwanted clothes are thrown in the bin because they do not fit
- E-commerce return rates for apparel are roughly 30% with many returns ending in landfill due to processing costs
- Extending the life of clothing by nine months would reduce carbon waste and water footprints by 20-30%
- 40% of consumers have thrown unwanted clothes in the trash rather than donating or recycling
- The average garment is worn 36% less times today than it was in the early 2000s
- Approximately 90% of discarded textiles in the US are actually recyclable but fewer people participate in programs
- 50% of people throw away damaged clothes rather than repairing them
- In the UK roughly 300,000 tonnes of clothing ends up in household bins every year
- Overconsumption is driven by prices so low that clothing is treated as a disposable good aka rapid obsolescence
- UK shoppers buy more clothes per person than any other country in Europe driving higher discard rates
- 20% of unsold clothing stock is discarded by consumers without ever being worn
- The average number of clothing collections per year has risen from 2 to 5 with some brands offering 24
- Fast fashion items are often discarded after fewer than 5 washes due to poor quality construction
Interpretation
We've turned clothing into disposable confetti—buying far more than we need, wearing items only a few times or not at all, then trashing or returning them, which floods landfills, wastes water, pumps out carbon, and shows repair and recycling are being ignored.
Environmental Impact
- 4% of the global waste stream consists solely of textiles making it a major landfill contributor
- Decomposing clothing releases methane a powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere
- Fashion waste in landfills contributes to soil and groundwater pollution through leachate
- Synthetic fibers in landfills can take up to 200 years to decompose
- Textile dyes and chemicals leaching from landfills can render land unusable for agriculture
- The carbon footprint of clothing in use and at end-of-life accounts for 30% of the industry's total carbon impact
- Incinerating clothes releases hazardous toxins and micro-particles into the air
- The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined
- Microplastics released from landfilled synthetics pollute local waterways and food chains
- 20% of industrial water pollution globally comes from textile dyeing and treatment
- Landfilling clothing wastes the embedded energy of production which is 95% of the total energy footprint of the garment
- Reducing textile waste could save 4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year in the UK alone
- The incineration of cellulosic fabric waste generates biogenic CO2 while synthetic waste generates fossil CO2
- Burning 1 ton of textile waste generates nearly 10,000 kWh of energy but releases significant pollutants
- Wool garments decompose in landfills but produce methane triggering a higher global warming potential than CO2
- Viscose and rayon in landfills can contribute to higher acidity levels in soil
- The fashion industry's waste footprint extends to biodiversity loss due to land needed for landfill sites
- 35% of all microplastics in the ocean come from the laundering of synthetic textiles which eventually settles as waste sludge
- If the fashion industry continues on its current path it will use up 26% of the world's carbon budget by 2050
- Every year the fashion industry uses 93 billion cubic meters of water enough to meet the needs of five million people
Interpretation
Fashion's landfill problem may be only four percent of the global waste stream, but it behaves like a slow-motion environmental bomb because decomposing garments and incineration emit methane, CO2 and toxic particles, dyes and leachate poison soil and groundwater, synthetic fibers and microplastics can take centuries to break down and contaminate waterways and food chains, the industry already emits more carbon than aviation and shipping combined and risks using a quarter of the world's carbon budget by 2050, and vast amounts of water and embedded energy are thrown away, so unless we mend our systems our closets will keep hemming in the planet we depend on.
Global Waste Volumes
- The fashion industry generates an estimated 92 million tonnes of textile waste annually
- Textile waste is projected to increase by 60% by 2030 to an estimated 148 million tonnes annually
- The equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned every second
- Between 2000 and 2015 clothing production doubled while utilization decreased by 36%
- Approximately 85% of all textiles thrown away in the US are either dumped into landfills or burned
- Global production of textile fibers doubled from 58 million tons in 2000 to 109 million tons in 2020
- Pre-consumer waste generates approximately 15% of the total fabric used in garment production
- In 2018 landfills received 11.3 million tons of MSW textiles in the United States
- Waste from the fashion industry is expected to reach 134 million tonnes per year by the end of the decade if trends continue
- Deadstock (unsold inventory) accounts for roughly 10-20% of fashion production volumes
- Luxury brands have destroyed over $600 million worth of unsold goods to preserve exclusivity
- The volume of textile waste generated globally increased by 811% between 1960 and 2015
- Textiles represent the fourth highest pressure category for the use of primary raw materials and water
- Only 20% of textiles are collected for reuse or recycling globally
- 57% of all discarded clothing ends up in landfill
- 25% of global waste is generated by the fashion and textile sectors combined
- The amount of waste produced by the sector is set to rise to 17.5 kg per person annually across the globe by 2030
- Without intervention the fashion industry's waste stream will likely increase by over 50% by 2030
- Almost 100% of textiles and clothing are recyclable yet the majority ends up in landfills
- Post-consumer textile waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in many developed countries
Interpretation
Fashion is quietly turning the planet into its personal landfill, burying or burning the equivalent of a garbage truck of textiles every second, destroying unsold luxury goods to preserve exclusivity, and squandering nearly all recyclable clothing so that, without radical change, industry waste could soar more than 50 percent by 2030.
Regional Specifics
- Approximately 15 million items of used clothing arrive in Accra Ghana every week
- 40% of the clothing imported into Ghana's Kantamanto market becomes waste immediately
- The Atacama Desert in Chile receives approximately 39000 tons of discarded clothing annually
- In 2017 the EU produced 7.4 kg of textile waste per person
- The United States exports over 1 billion pounds of used clothing every year much of which becomes waste abroad
- France is the only country in the world with an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme specifically for textiles
- 70% of clothing donated to charities in the UK is exported overseas for reuse or landfill
- Australia sends 6000kg of fashion and textile waste to landfill every 10 minutes
- In Hong Kong approximately 343 tonnes of textile waste are deposited into landfills daily
- Kenya imports 185,000 tonnes of second-hand clothing annually a significant portion of which is landfilled
- New York City residents throw out 200,000 tons of clothing and textiles annually
- China generates 26 million tons of textile waste annually with a recycling rate of less than 15%
- The EU plans to require separate collection of textile waste by 2025 to reduce landfilling
- Nearly half of the used clothing exported from Europe to Africa is of such poor quality it is landfilled
- In Canada 85% of clothing is sent to landfills rather than being repaired or recycled
- California sends approximately 1.25 million tons of textiles to landfills annually
- Panipat India known as the cast-off capital shreds thousands of tons of global garments daily
- Uganda has threatened to ban used clothes imports to stop becoming a dumping ground for waste
- Sweden incinerates most of its textile waste for district heating rather than landfilling it
- In the UK the cost of landfilling clothing and household textiles is approximately 82 million GBP annually
Interpretation
Fast fashion has turned our global wardrobe into a waste pipeline, funneling millions of garments and tens of millions of tons each year into deserts, landfills and struggling cities while only France makes producers legally responsible and most countries simply ship their mess abroad.
Textile Composition & Recycling
- Less than 1% of materials used to produce clothing are recycled into new clothing
- 12% of textile waste is downcycled into lower value applications like mattress stuffing or insulation
- 60% of all clothing produced is made from synthetic fibers like polyester which do not decay
- Polyester production for textiles accounts for 52% of the global fiber market complicating recycling
- Only 13-15% of textiles are recycled in some form globally
- Blended fibers such as poly-cotton make garments nearly impossible to recycle commercially
- Elastane found in stretch jeans acts as a contaminant in the paper recycling stream if mixed
- Metal hardware like zippers and buttons must be manually removed rendering recycling cost-prohibitive
- Fibre-to-fibre recycling technology currently handles less than 0.1% of global textile waste
- It takes up to 20000 liters of water to produce 1kg of cotton which is lost when the item is landfilled
- Chemical recycling of polyester is energy-intensive and currently represents a negligible market share
- Mechanical recycling shortens fibers reducing the quality of the new fabric
- 500,000 tonnes of microfibers are released into the ocean yearly during washing essentially liquid plastic waste
- Virgin polyester is often cheaper to buy than recycled polyester discouraging recycling
- Leather tanning utilizes heavy metals making leather waste hazardous in landfills
- Footwear decomposition is particularly difficult due to the use of up to 40 different materials in one shoe
- Denim finishing produces sludge waste that often contains high levels of manganese and cadmium
- The percentage of recycled cotton in new garments rarely exceeds 20% due to fiber strength issues
- Bio-based synthetic fibers usually require industrial composting facilities and will not degrade in standard landfills
- Global capacity for textile collection is insufficient with collection rates as low as 11% in some developed nations
Interpretation
By churning out mostly nondecaying, blended and hardware laden garments that shed microplastics, guzzle enormous amounts of water and toxic chemistry, and are often cheaper to make from virgin polyester than to recycle, the fashion industry has effectively engineered a permanent closet problem: clothes that are nearly impossible or prohibitively costly to reclaim and that quietly turn into decades-long hazardous landfill.
References
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