Challenges of Recycled Fashion You Should Know

This post elucidates where the waste from the textile sector stems from, discusses some of the challenges of recycled fashion with respect to humankind, environment, and profit, and how the fashion industry tries to cope with these issues.

In the UK, the 2009 textile consumption was estimated as 24.16 million tons, on average 35 kg per person. This amount produces 2 million tons of waste, 70 million tons of waste water per year, and finally, 1.5 million tons of unwanted clothing deposited in landfills. According to a Pulse of the Fashion Industry Report fashion generates 92 million tons of waste per year-a total of 4% of the world’s garbage. 

For various reasons (limited resources, cost-efficiency, environmental issues, consumer demands), the fashion industry has started to work towards increasing their sustainability.  Obviously, there are various challenges of recycled fashion. 

What Makes Up the Waste Related to Fashion?

In the fashion industry, waste occurs at all stages. For instance, leaves and roots wastes and twigs from harvesting plants (e.g., flax, hemp) or picking cotton. Often the bio-material is burned to fertilize the soils. However, many countries prohibit the practice due to its air pollution.

Next preparing flax or hemp to gain the fibers requires striping the bark; in case of cotton, the seeds. During spinning waste occurs. The selvage and weaves with naps identified by machine vision contribute to the waste. Add waste water from bleaching, dyeing, mordanting. Furthermore, patented color palettes or patterns prohibit selling misprinted fabrics. Cutting the fabrics is another source for textile waste. Clothing that fails to pass the quality control or isn’t sold start the pile of garment waste. Finally, every garment ends up as waste when the owner retires their clothes.

Due to the different types and sources of waste, we distinguish:

• Postindustrial cloth wastes consisting of solids, liquids, and gases produced during the production.
• Pre-consumer cloth wastes encompassing the remains of each manufacturing process (e.g., bits of cloth, leather, discarded raw materials, plant debris).
• Postconsumer wastes of clothing due to aesthetic, practical, style, changing trends and fit reasons, wear-and-tear.

Are There Advantages of Recycling Textile Waste?

Recently, the textile industry started recycling some of their waste. Doing so reduces their landfill taxes, decreases losses thru selling waste as raw materials for another process. Their products gain green credentials due to the company’s diverting waste from landfill. Selling fabric left-overs from cutting discarded fabrics to auto and furniture industry provides them with material from “recycled” resources for upholster.

Some eco brands and apparel companies have developed closed loop programs that incorporate the end-of-life (EoL) for their products. Typically, the EoL principle applies one of the following strategies to recapture value:

• Repair/reuse,
• Refurbish,
• Remanufacture,
• Cannibalization,
• Recycling, and
• Upcycling.

Is the Recycling of Used Clothes Sustainable?

Ever since homo sapiens produced clothes, a trade with second hand clothing existed. Today, if items donated to charity don’t sell in the local thrift stores, the US and UK, for instance, export them to markets in Africa and Latin America as well as Eastern Europe.

There these imported clothes are much cheaper than locally, hand-made attire. Consequently, local tailors, knitters, weavers and seamstresses go out of business. Such closures not only decrease the quality of life (QoL) of their employees, but also the QoL of the community. Unemployed people namely have limited money to spend meaning less income for other local businesses. Furthermore, cultural values and skills are at risk; people lose their cultural identity; in addition, the unemployed might lose their self-esteem and self-confidence.

How Do Fashion Brands Cope with the Challenges of Recycled Fashion?

Despite the challenges of recycled fashion, apparel brands ranging from fast fashion (e.g., H&M), over outdoor wear (e.g., Patagonia) to luxury attire (e.g., Louis Vuitton, Stella McCartney) have introduced one or more of these strategies. Pratibha Syntexa-an Indian fabric manufacturer, for instance, is recycling waste fabrics into yarns and clothing. Doing so, the business gains from the production of the clothes while decreasing waste.

An indirect societal benefit of their recycling and value-creation initiatives is a change in attitude of their employees with respect to available sources.

Efforts Using Recycled Non-Textile Material

Many fashion brands use packaging from recycled paper to improve their image in the eyes of the consumers. Some fashion brands made using recycled material their marketing concept. For instance, Newbella’s footwear is from recycled plastic bottles. The accessories brand Jord recycles fallen trees and unwanted furniture into wooden watch bands and cases.

Is Reuse of Clothing Environmentally Friendly?

The export of used clothes requires transport by trucks/railroad and ships. Consequently, transportation emits soot, primary aerosols, trace gases like SO₂, NO_x (=NO + NO₂), NH₃, and various volatile organic compounds (aka VOCs). Once in the atmosphere, these gases react and build secondary pollution including aerosols and health-adverse ozone at breathing height. The wind transports these gases and particles over long distances far away from the emission sources.

Aerosols can vary in size. However, all particles smaller or equal to 2.5 µm in diameter (PM_2.5) can enter the lungs. Medical studies have revealed various health-adverse impacts of PM_2.5.

Note that a PM_2.5 is 70 times smaller than a human hair.

Is Reuse/Recycle of Fibers Saving Resources?

Yes, and no. Obviously, reuse/recycling involves costs. Let’s discuss the recycling of fibers from old garments. This approach works for apparels consisting of 100% of the raw material, i.e., not for blended fabrics. However, blending of fibers serves to improve fabric characteristics like breathability, insulation, resistance to wrinkles, etc. In a nutshell, costs occur  for collection, sorting, transport, and cleaning of the old textiles. All these steps involve costs for human resources, energy, and water.

However, to be competitive in the market, the costs of reuse/recycle must be lower than creating something new from scratch. Therefore, recent research quantified the energy costs for reuse/recycling and using virgin cotton. The study revealed that replacing 1 kg of virgin cotton by cotton from old clothing saves approximately 65 kWh; reusing 1 kg of polyester with 1 kg old polyester saves around 90 kWh.

Could Junk Style Reach Mass Market Capacity?

Some companies (e.g., the label Junky Styling) remanufacture or deconstruct used garments to create new, unique attire. Obviously, this niche market is small and hence negligibly contributing to sustainability of fashion. Furthermore, remanufacturing and/or upcycling is labor-intensive meaning expensive given the already worn quality of the material. Therefore, remanufacture excludes cheap, low-quality apparel.

The approach requires highly skilled, creative employees. Furthermore, a major challenge in remanufacturing clothes is the unpredictable supply chain. The company can’t plan far ahead without knowing what kind of garments will come in, when.

Which Challenges of Recycled Fashion Exist Beyond the Control of the Industry/Brands?

Except for countries with tropical climates, clothing disposal is seasonal because typically consumer overhaul their closet twice to four times a year with the changing seasons.

An effective reuse requires loyal customers, i.e., branding and a detailed market analysis are insufficient. Furthermore, the legal issues bear a challenge for recycled fashion. For instance, the collection and use of waste requires legitimate regulations and clear support thru government policies.

Who Pays for Sustainability in Fashion?

The underpaid employees in low-salary countries, people of countries that import used garments, and the consumers world-wide. Even so-called renewable resources are not unlimited. Recall any land-use and/or land-cover changes affect at least the local climate. Just think the urban island effect, for example.

What Can You, the Consumer Do Given the Challenges of Recycled Fashion?

Obviously, not buying and not wearing clothes is not an option. It would run you into problems with the police in summer, and put you at risk to die from hypothermia in winter.

Furthermore, you would unintentionally put people at risk to lose their jobs.

However, some companies have developed a closed cycle from production to EoL for some of their products, and collect their unwanted garments. Some brands even collect valuable material produced from other brands. Like separating green and white glass, plastic, organic, and paper waste, dispose your “recyclable” retired clothes in collection boxes for the respective 100% fiber box.

Think twice before retiring your clothes. Can you upcycle your boots with damaged heel? Turn the dress with the ripped top into a skirt? Could you sew a skirt from old shirts of a the same material?

Alternatively, organize a clothes swap so you know your unwanted pieces will be worn by someone locally. Doing so reduces emissions from export, and helps preserve employment, skills, and cultural identity elsewhere.

Learn to Shop and Dress with Minimizing of Waste in Mind

• Wear your dress as a skirt or shirt to not get bored wearing it.
• Buy clothes that go with at least three pieces you already own.
• Know what works for your private and professional lifestyle and what flatters you (e.g., your color palette, the best belts and cuts for your body shape, HR-approved work clothes, your personal style); and stick to it when buying new clothes. Not doing so just fills your closet with pieces you never wear.
• Layer to create interest, style, and thermal insulation.
• Except when you live in a tropical climate region, only buy clothes that work at least for three seasons.
• Read posts on try-outs or reviews of fashion items.
• Check the brands’ “About Us” page whether their company values (human resources, environment, profit) match your ethical values.
• …

Conclusions on the Challenges of Recycled Fashion

Obviously, the clothing supply chain and second-hand clothing market are very complex, and global. Consequently, any global shift to sustainability has to come at the brand, retailer and/or consumer level. While countries can introduce legislature towards sustainability, these laws might harm their own economy (export) and even risk boycotts.

In a nutshell, reuse, recycling, remanufacturing of old undesired clothes all require transport with negative impacts on air quality. Furthermore, these strategies also involve cleaning of the clothing which creates waste-water. This means a major challenge of recycled fashion is that recycling also requires resources and involves cost.

Selling of pre-consumer waste seems to be the most efficient way of adding sustainability in the fashion industry. It namely provides

• A continuous supply chain of cheap recycled material for upholstery,
• Revenue for both parties, and
• Keeps the prices affordable for consumers.

References

Mölders, N., 2011. Land-use and land-cover changes: impact on climate and air quality (Vol. 44). Springer Science & Business Media.

Mölders, N., and Kramm, G., 2014. Lectures in Meteorology. Springer Science & Business Media.

Mölders, N., 2023. Discover the Relation between Fashion, Fabric, Weather and Comfort. Amazon Publishing Pros.

Kumar, J., Singha, K, Pandit, P., Maity, S., and Ray, A., 2020. Challenges for Waste in Fashion and Textile Industry. In: Pandit, P., Ahmed, S., Singha, K. and Shrivastava, S. (eds.), Recycling from Waste in Fashion and Textiles: A Sustainable & Circular Economic Approach, Scrivener Publishing LLC, 19–32.

Shen, B., 2014. Sustainable fashion supply chain: Lessons from H&M. Sustainability, 6, 6236-6249.

Sinha, P., and Dissanayake, K., 2009. Recycled Fashion. Conference: International Sustainable Development Research Society, Utrecht University, Netherlands, Volume: 15th Annual, 5-8 July 2009.

Woolridge, A. C., Ward, G. D., Phillips, P. S., Collins, M. and Gandy S., 2006. Life cycle assessment for reuse/recycling of donated waste textiles compared to use of virgin material: An UK energy saving perspective. Resources, Conservation and Recycling,46, 94–103.

First photo credit: Author: smirart. Source: depositphotos.com.

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