Textile Industry Environmental Impact Statistics

We're literally dressing ourselves in pollution: the textile industry now accounts for about 35% of primary microplastics, sheds roughly 500,000 tonnes of microfibres to the oceans each year while a single polyester wash can emit hundreds of thousands of fibres, and relies on millions of tonnes and thousands of persistent, toxic chemicals that contaminate ecosystems and raise cancer risks for workers.

Put bluntly, the fashion industry already punches far above its weight, accounting for about 10% of global carbon emissions and producing more greenhouse gases than all international flights and shipping combined, with emissions set to rise 50% by 2030 and potentially consuming 26% of the remaining carbon budget by 2050; the problem is driven upstream, where material production creates 70% of the footprint, and by synthetic fibers, since polyester emits two to three times the carbon of cotton and nylon production releases nitrous oxide that is 300 times more potent than CO2, which helps explain why a polyester shirt has about 5.5 kg CO2e compared with 2.1 kg for cotton and a single pair of running shoes generates roughly 13.6 kg, while the footwear sector alone accounts for 1.4% of global emissions, online returns in the United States produced 15 million tonnes of CO2 in 2020, washing and drying clothing adds 120 million tonnes annually, inefficient mills lose 40% of energy as waste heat and ironing adds about 15% to a garment's lifetime energy impact, and air freight can multiply emissions a hundredfold compared with sea freight; the good news is that choices matter, because buying one used item cuts its carbon footprint by about 82% and extending a garment's life by nine months reduces carbon, waste and water footprints by 20 to 30%.

If environmental impact were a fashion trend, the textile industry would be sewing a crisis: 69 percent of fibers are synthetic and gulp 342 million barrels of oil a year, man made cellulosic fibers like viscose and rayon cut 70 million trees annually and have doubled market share since 1990, livestock for leather occupies 30 percent of the planet's ice free land while a kilogram of cow leather can have roughly twenty times the footprint of synthetic leather and nearly all hides are chrome tanned, less than one percent of cotton is organic and conventional cotton degrades soil, recycled polyester relies mostly on PET bottles and elastane makes fabrics nearly impossible to recycle, bamboo is often chemically processed like heavy rayon, silk and some wools can outpollute cotton per kilogram, cashmere has stripped fifteen percent of Mongolian grasslands, by 2030 fiber demand could hit about 145 million tons, bio based synthetics remain under one percent, and yet hemp can produce two to two and a half times more fibre per hectare using half the water.

The world's wardrobe has become a gigantic environmental faux pas: 92 million tonnes of textile waste a year, less than one percent recycled back into clothing, the equivalent of a garbage truck of textiles burned or buried every second, and up to 73% of garments ultimately in landfills or dumps, which shows that buying more and keeping items half as long is costing us ecosystems, carbon budgets, and trillions in squandered value.

Fashion is guzzling the planet’s water and staining its rivers, consuming about 93 billion cubic meters a year and generating roughly 20 percent of global wastewater while a single pair of jeans needs about 7,500 liters and cotton can take 10,000 to 20,000 liters per kilogram, textile dyeing and treatment cause about 20 percent of industrial water pollution and lose some 200,000 tons of dyes to effluent annually which helps explain why around 70 percent of China’s rivers and lakes are contaminated and why viscose and leather processing create dead zones with leather tanning using roughly 16,000 liters per kilogram, and yet simple shifts like organic cotton that uses 91 percent less water and halving dyeing water could save billions of liters and water millions of people.