We Don’t Need More Clothes
Reducing the clothing waste we ship to other countries
128.7. That is the kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions we need to fall below for our fashion consumption to remain within planet sustainability levels (i.e. limiting global temperatures from rising above 1.5℃ from pre-industrial levels, as noted by the IPCC).
How did we get here?
A 2018 abstract in the journal Environmental Health may be a good place to start:
“Fast fashion, inexpensive and widely available of-the-moment garments, has changed the way people buy and dispose of clothing. By selling large quantities of clothing at cheap prices, fast fashion has emerged as a dominant business model, causing garment consumption to skyrocket. While this transition is sometimes heralded as the “democratization” of fashion in which the latest styles are available to all classes of consumers, the human and environmental health risks associated with inexpensive clothing are hidden throughout the lifecycle of each garment. From the growth of water-intensive cotton, to the release of untreated dyes into local water sources, to worker’s low wages and poor working conditions; the environmental and social costs involved in textile manufacturing are widespread.”
The unintended consequences of the democratization of fashion brought us to our current waste issue. However, this “democratization” is not enjoyed by all people. It is brought about by the subjugation of certain areas of the world. Meanwhile, most of us remain unaware of the planetary limits we exceed in our everyday lives.
In no way is this a comprehensive breakdown of the aptly named “clothing crisis,” but it does serve as the understanding of an individual living within it. The report from the Hot or Cool Institute (Unfit, Unfair, Unfashionable) is a more extensive resource for understanding this issue as well as actionable steps we can take moving forward. I also highly recommend the Australian Broadcast Company’s video on secondhand textile waste in West Africa.
What is the clothing crisis?
Food. Money. Housing. Medical care. Globally, some people can’t secure these necessities. Clothing is a different story, however.
The G20 (an intergovernmental group of 20 countries) has, in the past 30 years, spent the same or less on clothing while doubling the amount bought and decreasing the time used. This “democratization” of fast fashion is aided by the distancing of textile production and disposal from places of consumption. We exploit less powerful countries for our benefit. Consequently, the toxic leaching of dyes and other chemicals into the soil, water, and air negatively impacts the quality of life of the people there.
Yet, it seems no one is in need of clothing. We have so much clothing that in the most affluent countries, we ship containers full of it to “countries in need” as part of a gracious “act of charity.” They have little use for our unwanted clothes, however, because they already have their own. Clothing is the one necessity the world has met.
So why are we still producing mass quantities of clothes we don’t need?
A large part of our continued textile production comes from poor awareness of the grip fashion has on us. If we expect that with great power comes great responsibility, then those with more power should be expected to hold greater responsibility over what is “right.”
In this case, the power dynamics lie between the company and the consumer. When a company has the “what-can-i-get-away-with” mentality formed by profit-seeking nature, it makes sense we would see textile production exported to countries where workers have less power to fight unjust labor laws. It makes sense that the fourth largest greenhouse gas-producing industry would view their environmental impact as an unfortunate “negative externality.” It makes sense companies would want to advertise their products and that social networking companies would prefer us to see “curated” ads. And in all this, it makes sense this would put us in a “consumer” mindset such that we begin to define our identity, at least partly, by the clothes we wear.
As a final overview of this crisis, take a look at this graph from Unfit:
The graph shows the kg of CO2 emissions associated with textiles for 12 countries in the G20. It identifies a “fair consumption space” consisting of the previously mentioned environmental ceiling of 128.7 kg per person annually and a minimum sufficiency level of 58 kg.
Based on an average of $40 (USD) per month spent on clothing, coolclimate.org tells me my annual clothing footprint is about 250 kg CO2. To be under the environmentally sustainable threshold, I need to reduce my consumption by half to roughly $20 per month.
As with climate change, and as evidenced by the graph, all the world’s people don’t share in making this crisis.
Individual solutions, while avoiding consumer “scapegoatism”
We, as consumers, have a significant role to play in the struggle toward 128.7. So often, we hear how, especially regarding climate change, we should place the burden on the companies and organizations that produce the majority of greenhouse gases. This is absolutely true. However, we must also recognize our power. The findings from Unfit indicate that a 75% reduction in new clothes could decrease the average G20 citizen’s clothing emissions by 161 kg of CO2 per year. Further, when combining this and other sufficiency scenario behaviors at the consumer level with decarbonization and other efficiency behaviors at industrial levels, the report projects 19 of the G20 countries could reduce their per capita CO2 emissions to fair consumption space levels.
With that in mind, let’s look at recycling, reusing, and reducing.
Recycle
Clothing take-back companies and Buy Nothing groups, as well as secondhand stores, lie supreme here. For example, For Days built their clothing brand around the “circular economy” model. Their “Take Back Bag,” which allows not only clothes but also “…socks, underwear, sheets, pillowcases, towels, linens, shoes, and handbags,” is fairly comprehensive. They strive to ensure items are resold or downcycled to prevent them from landing in the trash. As for their clothes, they work with a company that produces high-value threads which can break down for use in future clothing. This avoids the issue of the eventual loss of functionality with downcycling.
Reuse
Recycling is best used when clothing has nothing left to give, but an even better use for those old jeans you tore a hole through the back of is reuse and repair. By turning those jeans into, say, cleaning cloths, not only are you preventing them from ending up in the trash, but you’re also saving waste from disposable paper towels.
Along the lines of reusing is extending the use-time of your clothes. From Unfit:
“While some of these practices [reuse] can be facilitated by circular business and collaborative consumption models, they are also influenced by a variety of idiosyncratic wear practices and a mindset that characterizes an emotional relationship with clothing that is steeped in meaning.”
Extending something’s use time forces us to cherish what we have rather than adding to our collection of new “stuff.”
Reduce
Finally, we come to the last R, reduce. Recycling and reuse embody the ideals of a circular economy, but they fail to address an important issue: what if, through underlying commodification and consumer habits, the circle gets bigger? In this case, it is reduction, curbing our consumption, which maintains the circle within sustainable limits.
Beyond reducing our clothing purchases, we should also normalize politely refusing things like event t-shirts. Nowadays most races won’t give you the option to say you don’t want a shirt (or participant medal, for that matter). I’d be fine with paying the same price and opting out of a shirt. Personally, I’d like to avoid putting another textile tentacle on a beach in Ghana.
Most people recognize we cannot continue with our current levels of consumption. For some, though, there may be an over-reliance on letting our ingenuity solve the problem. When it comes to things like decarbonization, maybe that’s true. However, there needs to coincide with it a change in behavior and a focus on more of the things that matter to us.
Degrowth is a mindset where we reject the ideal of an ever-increasing production of goods which plagues most capitalist systems today in favor of a more sustainable, equitable economy focusing on the well-being of its citizens. Some have pointed out the term can take on a negative connotation as if implying we turn back progress. I see it more as a conscious rejection of the way some things currently are, in favor of a better future.
“I think a lot of people care about this issue,” noted Ricketts of The Or Foundation. “But they have the luxury of forgetting about this problem.”
