How Old Clothes Can Be Recycled And Put To Good Use Again
4 methods to reduce the environmental impact of the fashion industry
Credit: This article is based on three scientific articles by Antonella Patti, Damayanti Damayanti, and Xiufen Xie and their colleagues. (Full citations and link available at the end of the article)
One of the industries that currently significantly contributes to environmental issues is the fashion industry. This industry causes more than 8% of the global greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of wastewater every year. Also, because of the fast fashion trend, huge amounts of clothes are produced, which requires a lot of earthly resources including fossil fuels and cotton. The fast fashion business model involves mass production of inexpensive clothes in response to the latest fashion trends.
When trends are over and clothes are disposed of, most of them end up on landfills or are burned. Less than 1% of the material is recycled into new clothing. This means that a lot of these valuable earthly resources are lost.
The best way to reduce the amount of required resources and make this industry more environmental friendly is by producing fewer clothes in the first place. What also helps is extending the lifetime of clothes and fabrics through recycling. When recycling…
