Clothing waste.

[GettingStuffed]

This is the artist that piqued my interest and since then I've seen more

Do you know where recycling and overproduced clothing goes. I always assumed that they were broken down in to fabric and then reused.

This isn't the case. If you look a Ghana you'll find immense piles of our clothing. Much as I love clothes and have far too many 😀. I've vowed not to buy stuff I done need nevermind how pretty.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/05/yvette-yaa-konadu-tetteh-how-ghana-became-fast-fashions-dumping-ground

Same thing happens when people criticise buying from Shein—you always get (made up) examples of how it's absolutely essential for some people, how dare you etc etc, when in reality the people buying "hauls" on there could easily afford to spend that money on a few quality items instead.

We have a local community shop and I make reusable drawstring fruit/veg bags for them from old net curtains. They don't weigh anything so don't add to the price of the fruit. People (and local charity shops) give me old net curtains saving them from landfill and the shop sells the bags for 20p.

I’ve been aware of this for sometime and this year decided to try and buy no new clothes this year. When I started in January I thought I’d last until March. I still haven’t bought anything new (apart from socks and undies) or from a charity shop (I have bought from jumble sales). I suspect I could go another year as well.

I do like to decorate for Easter, Christmas and autumn but tend to use second hand, vintage or home made things

I do really like seasonal things if I'm honest. That said I don't buy lots of stuff, I've only got a few things that come out each year.

Exactly!

I'm not in the UK, the supermarkets here have paper bags for fuit and veg, or you take in your own reusable ones.

I'm not in the UK either, but here there's SO much bloody plastic, it's mad (even though single use plastic has supposedly been banned by the EU).

To be fair, paper bags are a lovely idea but supremely impractical in a country where it rains about 60% of the time.

The paper bags I'm talking about are for the fruit/veg, which then gets put into your reusable shopping bag when you are ready to leave.

If you do the self scan it's not a problem, I just get the sticker scan it and stick it somewhere on the outside of my big bag. Or stick the sticker straight on the veg.

Or use your local market. It gets put straight into my bag and if they need to bag it, they use paper bags which can go in recycling.

I put the sticker on the actual item of fruit/veg. One each!

We often focus on consumption, during these discussions, but there also needs to be a focus on the need for an ever expanding economy, growing companies, increasing shareholder value, growing market share... for the most part, businesses are not filling a need but creating a product that is then marketed to consumers. Stop oil, is not just about reducing extraction of fossil fuels but also reducing the push to find new uses for man made chemicals. There is a growing industry in products that are made from natural fibres, processed so they perform like plastics, we are being sold a lie, these 'like plastic' materials will still end up in landfill, our compost will have 'like plastic' particles in it which will disturb the balance of the soil and still have an impact.

There are sufficient garments in the world to clothe the entire population for the next 6 generations. https://pirg.org/articles/we-have-enough-clothing-on-the-planet-right-now-for-the-next-six-generations/

We need to change our entire economic structure. Consumer efforts are akin to trying to catch water in a sieve, global structural economic changes would allow the tap to be turned off. If there were no raw materials pouring in at the top, striving for technological advances to find new ways of producing and consuming was slowed down, there would be fewer things that would need marketing effort to create demand and consequently, less consumption.

Money and power...

You are absolutely right, but I think we depend so much on increasing capital it’s incredibly difficult to imagine a way out. Years ago I worked for a private company, the year I was there they made something like £10 million profit, but because the year before they’d made £18 million profit and they had predicted £24 million profit (I can’t remember the numbers but around that ballpark), it was a disaster and they had to make 10% of the people in the company redundant. The decrease was due to external factors and was likely to change the next year. It seemed bonkers to me, but the most important thing wasn’t the product or the people working there or even the customers, but the expectation of the shareholders, every year they needed more profits, it was ultimately unsustainable (the company has since been bought by a larger company and employs far fewer people now).
But much of the economy, most people’s pensions, depend on this system where companies increasing profits are depended on.

I agree that the whole commercial fashion and apparel industry needs to be unpicked. It's actually insulting to receive a garment in a paper posting bag or with a tag marked as recycled paper, this is absolute nitpicking compared to the pollution, unfair working conditions, carbon oil and water all literally dyed into the garment itself.

To make any headway we would need to restrict cheap/non fair-trade imports, support British manufacturers and more sustainable factories overseas. Overconsumption needs to be socially unacceptable like smoking or overeating. It would need political intervention and like junk food the industry would fight every step.

A model where cheap rubbish clothes are made in the developing world, leaving poverty and pollution behind, shipped to the west to be discarded and shipped back as waste and more pollution is really sick. I wonder if it will be looked back on like the slave trade- how did we ever think such exploitation was ok?

Thanks for this, it is genius! Some of my sofa cushions are getting flatter and I have natural fibre textiles waiting to be recycled that could be used for this purpose exactly.

My local textile bank facility only allows you in if you have a car; they obviously fail to see the irony of this. Since I've read the article though I am going to find out what happens to their banked textiles. I thought that they were shredded and used for insulation. If I discover they export them, then I am going to compost the cottons and viscose and have a hard think about what to do with the rest. Then from now on just buy natural fibres.

Also just wanted to add, does anyone know what the Scandinavian model for this issue is?
They often have a better thought out system.

Another thing is the closure of high street shops means people can't try on, and free returns mean if people buy 50 things, they might keep ten. The other 40? Going straight to landfill because it's cheaper and easier than processing them to be sold again. That's all i can think when i see fast fashion "try on" hauls on social media.

businesses are not filling a need but creating a product that is then marketed to consumers

I read this thread yesterday and was thinking about it last night. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with the above. For me, I feel like the fashion cycle has sped up so much over the past few years in tandem with social media and the influencer industry. Skinny jeans were in for a decade or so, but now you’re lucky if something is in fashion for a year. Like a/w 24 seems to be all burgundy, brown, leopard print and suede on my Instagram but how much of that will be the fashion in a years time? I see accounts literally posting ‘run don’t walk’ for burgundy jumpers so you can see the mentality is all about creating demand and making items ‘must have’. Certain brands do ‘drops’ now to create hype and demand, so people buy so they don’t lose out. While it’s easy to say people shouldn’t care what they wear etc, a lot of women do want to look fashionable but social media has a lot to answer for especially with all these micro trends, drops and haul videos.

I also don’t understand why Primark is so evil? It doesn’t have more synthetic fabric than other stores. I think the main point is for us not to follow fast fashion. Most of our family’s holidays t-shirts are from Primark. Some of them just survived 4th holiday and went into a box for the next year. Them being cheap is just a nice bonus.
We don’t buy new holiday t-shirts every year if the last year ones are ok. And we don’t buy synthetic plastic clothes. I wish other people were doing at least these things.

Are you certain that returns go straight to landfill ? I don't think that's the case with all retailers as I've received items which have obviously been repackaged.

If you're vegan, you become familiar with cognitive dissonance and rage from people who call themselves environmentalists or animal lovers. Few people have the wherewithal to reflect accurately on their consumption choices and would prefer to blame others or become defensive.