Explaining clothing waste to my mom

Let's take a quick look at clothing waste. Brief and to the point.

To have clothing waste, there must be (over)consumption. Indeed, today we consume 60% more than 15 years ago. Society changes, and so do we. We are also fully entering an era of fast fashion where most brands renew collections 6 to 8 times a year. So, there's no time to enjoy a garment before a new collaboration comes out and we want to get it. Do we need it? That's another debate.

As of today, we buy about 10 kilograms of clothing per year per inhabitant. That's huge.

So, with this large consumption, we can ask ourselves the question "what do we do with clothes once we no longer wear them or if they are unsold?". Well, it's simple, unrecycled waste represents 80% of clothing. That's HUGE.

Furthermore, as we already know, the textile industry is one of the most polluting industries. It alone accounts for 1.2 billion tons of CO2 (or 20%). More polluting than air transport. It also accounts for 4% of potable water reserves...

Regarding clothing waste in France, between 10,000 and 20,000 tons of clothing are destroyed per year (to illustrate this quantity, it's roughly equivalent to 2 Eiffel Towers).

So, what options do we have to reduce this waste? First, prohibit the destruction of unsold items. This would save us 250,000 tons of CO2 per year. And instead of destroying them, brands can donate them to associations.

How can we change our consumption in the face of the pollution we generate? We can already promote ethical purchasing, made in France. Indeed, consume better but less. We can also favor second-hand (in fact, many second-hand items are almost new because they are not or very rarely worn). And finally, we can also rent our outfits. I admit I've never done that, even though more and more platforms exist.

Source

To go further:

+ Greenpeace

+ France Nature