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Mountains of dumped clothes pile up in Chile's Atacama Desert | DW News

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Team Canada's official clothing supplier, and the apparel industry at large, rely heavily on coal power for manufacturing.

As Team Canada prepared to don red Lululemon parkas and march in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, activists visited the Canadian apparel company's flagship store in Vancouver to give employees a medal made of coal rather than gold.

Members of the environmental advocacy group Stand.earth awarded a tongue-in-cheek "coal medal" on Wednesday to Lululemon Athletica, best known for its yoga gear, because the fast-growing apparel brand relies heavily on coal power to source, weave and dye its fabric and manufacture its clothing.

The attention-grabbing stunt highlighted a serious problem-a rapidly growing carbon bomb in consumers' closets-that climate advocates say the fashion industry must address. Greenhouse gas emissions from the apparel industry account for 4-8 percent of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions globally. That's roughly the same or slightly more than emissions from global shipping and aviation combined.

And while fashion brands have largely focused on reducing emissions from retail stores, warehouses and corporate headquarters, the vast majority of the apparel industry's emissions come from further up their supply chains, where garment manufacturing in developing countries relies heavily on coal-fired energy to source raw materials and make clothing.

"The fashion industry needs a makeover," said Elizabeth Sturcken, managing director of corporate partnerships for the Environmental Defense Fund. Sturcken added that the industry's growing greenhouse gas emissions are on a collision course with international efforts to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. "Without a series of changes in the very near future, the industry is set to over-emit [its] Paris Agreement goals two-fold by 2030. We have a massive challenge here in the next eight years."

Stand.earth is calling on Lululemon, the official clothing supplier for Team Canada, to transition from coal to renewable energy to power the factories where the company's apparel is made by 2030. Forty-eight percent of the electricity used by factories that make garments for Lululemon in Vietnam, Cambodia and China come from burning coal, with only 5 percent coming from renewable energy according to the Vancouver based advocacy organization. Apparel made in China, including the red parkas that members of Team Canada are expected to wear during Friday's opening ceremony, rely on coal for 64 percent of their electricity mix. By comparison, the U.S electric grid relies on coal for 19 percent of its power. Renewable energy sources provide 20 percent of the nation's electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Lululemon's "brand is based on these values of wellbeing and sustainability and when you look more closely at the brand's sustainability or climate efforts, you'll quickly notice that they've taken very little steps to actually move away from fossil fuels and to tackle their emissions," Muhannad Malas a senior climate campaigner with Stand.earth said.

Lululemon did not respond to a request from Inside Climate News for comment. However, the company has self-reported details on its emissions and sustainability efforts through financial reports and other public disclosures.

Climate Window Dressing

In 2020, Lululemon set a goal to power its operations with 100 percent renewable electricity by 2021 and to reduce the carbon intensity of the emissions from its supply chain by 60 percent by 2030. But a carbon intensity reduction is not the same as an absolute reduction in emissions. If the volume of goods sold by the company increases, as it is projected to do, the amount of greenhouse gases it emits could go up rather than decrease, even if its total production had lower carbon intensity.

Lululemon met its 2021, 100 percent renewable electricity goal. However, that goal only affected emissions tied to facilities directly owned by the company-" scope 1" and "scope 2" emissions -which account for just 5 percent of Lululemon's total emissions.

Like most apparel companies, Lululemon outsources the manufacturing of its apparel, as well as the production of the raw materials that go into its clothing, to other companies.

Ninety-five percent of Lululemon's emissions came from these indirect, or " scope 3," sources-the supply chain made up of manufacturing facilities in 14 countries and raw material suppliers in 18. This is according to a detailed accounting of company-wide emissions that Lululemon provided in its 2021 Climate Change Report published by CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), a non-profit organization that works with companies to report their environmental impact.

The CDP report notes that Lululemon's scope 1 and scope 2 emissions reduction goals are in line with the Paris Agreement's target to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The goals were independently verified through the Science Based Targets initiative, a collaboration between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

However, Lululemon's efforts to reduce its scope 3 emissions, which make up the lion's share of the company's climate pollution, are not aligned with efforts to limit warming to 1.5 C, but rather with a less ambitious target of 2 C.

"That's problematic because for a brand like Lululemon, like all other fashion brands, it's the scope three emissions target that matters most," Malas said.

Climate scientists say limiting global warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels is crucial to staving off the worst impacts of climate change, which would be far worse under 2 C of warming.

Lululemon's emissions will roughly triple between now and 2030 rather than decline by the amount needed to meet a 1.5 C aligned target, according to a recent analysis by Stand.earth. The group's assessment was based on the company's recently reported and anticipated growth in both sales and emissions.

Could Cutting Emissions Become Fashionable for Lululemon?

To curb emissions, Lululemon must work with its suppliers to install energy efficiency and renewable electricity projects, or to source clean energy elsewhere, Malas said.

Company officials appear to be considering such measures.

In the company's 2021 Climate Change report published by CDP, Lululemon said it plans to partner with suppliers "to mitigate climate-related issues, decarbonize our supply chain and meet our 2030 science-based targets, collaborating on energy efficiency initiatives and low carbon or renewable energy opportunities."

"This will help us minimize exposure to risks including carbon taxes, increased fossil fuel costs, reputational risks, and consumer preferences," the company said.

However, the company's most recent annual financial report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission noted that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could negatively impact the company's bottom line.

"If we choose to take voluntary steps to reduce or mitigate our impact on climate change, we may experience increases in energy, production, transportation, and raw material costs, capital expenditures, or insurance premiums and deductibles, which could adversely impact our operations," the January 2021 report stated.

Lululemon is pursuing cleaner electricity through renewable energy credits or power purchase agreements for its North American operations but hasn't made similar strides in Asia, where its clothing is manufactured. However, in 2020 the company partnered with one of its suppliers, a fabric mill in Taiwan, to test a more energy-efficient method of dyeing nylon, the primary fabric used in the company's apparel. The "solution dye" method used 40 percent less energy and 75 percent less water, the company reported in its 2021 Climate Change report published by CDP.

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Stand.earth's call for Lululemon to increase its use of renewables aligns with what others have been calling for from the fashion industry in recent years.

"The most effective way the apparel and footwear industries can achieve an ambitious industry-wide emission reduction is to focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency across their supply chains," a 2018 report by Quantis, a sustainability consulting firm concluded.

The study also pointed a finger at U.S. consumers who purchase an average of 83 pounds of clothing per person each year, more than shoppers in any other country. Purchases by U.S. consumers include 7 pairs of shoes per person, more than twice the global average and more than three times the annual footwear purchased by European consumers.

Philipp Meister, global fashion and sporting goods lead for Quantis, said he has seen a lot of promising pledges to reduce emissions in recent years, but companies now need to move from words to deeds.

"Honestly speaking, what is still missing are more tangible actions to actually then at the end of the day, reduce the impact," Meister said.

One challenge the industry faces is that by not owning the mills, factories and other manufacturing facilities that make the actual garments, brands have less leverage on manufacturers' investments in renewable energy, Meister said.

In cases where manufacturers produce apparel for a number of competing brands, individual apparel companies like Lululemon may have little incentive to help fund renewable energy investments when competitors using the same suppliers do not pitch in.

One way to get at the issue of which apparel brand should fund a manufacturer's renewable energy efforts is an industry-wide collaboration in which apparel companies work together to foster clean energy developments in developing countries.

In November, more than two dozen companies including New Balance, REI, Gap, and H&M jointly called on Vietnam to deploy more renewable energy, and make it easier for the brands and other private companies to engage in Direct Power Purchase Agreements for renewable energy in the country.

Whether it is companies working individually or collectively, the changes will have to come quickly if the industry seeks to remain within its Paris climate agreement targets.

"The fashion industry is one of the biggest contributors to climate emissions worldwide, and that contribution is growing as the industry continues to grow," Malas said. "Unless emissions drop significantly, and specifically unless we meet the Paris Agreement targets, many cities including Vancouver, which is where Lululemon is headquartered, may not be able to host the Winter Olympics in the future."

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Lululemon's Olympic Challenge to Reduce Its Emissions - Inside Climate News

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As Team Canada prepared to don red Lululemon parkas and march in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, activists visited the Canadian apparel company's flagship store in Vancouver to give employees a medal made of coal rather than gold. Members of the environmental advocacy group Stand.earth awarded a tongue-in-cheek "coal medal" on [...]

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Article: Why Clothes are so Hard to Recycle

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Article: Why Clothes are so Hard to Recycle

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https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200710-why-clothes-are-so-hard-to-recycle#:~:text=The%20average%20American%20has%20been,on%20landfill%20sites%20every%20second.

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"The current fashion system uses high volumes of non-renewable resources, including petroleum, extracted to produce clothes that are often used only for a short period of time, after which the materials are largely lost to landfill or incineration," says Chetna Prajapati, who studies ways of making sustainable textiles at Loughborough University in the UK.

"This system puts pressure on valuable resources such as water, pollutes the environment and degrades ecosystems in addition to creating societal impacts on a global scale."

There are good reasons to seek out alternatives to chucking clothes in the bin - globally the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, with textile production alone is estimated to release 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year. Vast amounts of water are also needed to produce the clothes we wear too and the fashion industry is responsible for 20% of global waste water. ( Read more about the impact our fashion addiction has on the planet.)

At the same time we are buying more clothes than ever - the average consumer now buys 60% more clothing than they did 15 years ago. More than two tonnes of clothing are bought each minute in the UK, more than any other country in Europe. Globally, around 56 million tonnes of clothing are bought each year, and this is expected to rise to 93 million tonnes by 2030 and 160 million tonnes by 2050.

While most clothes with care will last many years, changing fashions mean their lifespan is artificially shortened by consumers changing tastes. Industry figures suggest modern clothing will have a lifespan of between 2-10 years - with underwear and t-shirts lasting just one to two years, while suits and coats last for around four to six years.

Would recycling our clothes help to reduce the toll our fashion addiction has on the environment?

Currently just 13.6% of clothes and shoes thrown away in the US end up being recycled - while the average American throws away 37kg of clothes every year. Globally just 12% of the material used for clothing ends up being recycled. Compare that to paper, glass and plastic PET bottles - which have recycling rates of 66%, 27% and 29% respectively in the US - and it is clear clothing lags behind.

Indeed, most of the recycled polyester being used now by leading fashion brands in fact comes from bottles rather than old clothing.

Much of the problem comes down to what our clothes are made from. The fabrics we drape over our bodies are complex combinations of fibres, fixtures and accessories. They are made from problematic blends of natural yarns, mand-made filaments, plastics and metals.

"For example, a 100% cotton t-shirt contains many other components such as labels and sewing threads which are usually made from another material like polyester," says Prajapati. "Similarly, a typical pair of jeans are made from cotton yarn which is generally blended with elastane, and other components such as zips and buttons and polyester sewing thread and dyed using a range of dyes."

This makes them hard to separate so they can be effectively recycled. Sorting textiles into different fibres and material types by hand is labour intensive, slow and requires a skilled workforce. Growing use of modern fabric blends in clothing also makes it hard to do this mechanically too, although European researchers have been developing techniques that make use of hyperspectral cameras - which can see light beyond the limits of human vision - to better identify different fabric types. Once sorted, the dyes that have been applied to the fabrics need to be removed in order for yarns to be reused.

Currently, however, very few of the clothes that are sent to be recycled are actually turned into new clothing - a process known as "material to material" recycling. Old wool jumpers, for example, can be turned into carpets, cashmere can be recycled into suits. But as of 2015, less than 1% of used clothing was recycled in this way.

While of course there is a healthy market in second-hand clothes being sold online, perhaps the most popular way of disposing of old clothes is simply to give them away so they can be reused through charity shops. Increasingly, however, clothes donations are being used as a way of simply passing on the textile waste problem to others.

At Oxfam's Wastesaver clothes sorting and recycling plant in Batley, Yorkshire, UK, 80 tonnes of old clothes pass through the factory every week. Lorraine Needham Reid, Oxfam's Wastesaver manager, has worked at the plant for over 10 years. Over that time, however, she has seen a real decline in the quality of clothes that are reaching them, particularly when it comes to the materials used to make the clothes.

These days, most of what reaches Wastesaver will end up never being worn again. Over a third - 35% of the clothes - go to Oxfam's partners in Senegal to be sold. Between 1-3% go back into Oxfam shops around the UK to be re-sold.

The majority is sent for recycling in some way, but about six tonnes of the garments are of such poor quality they are simply torn up so they can be used as industrial cleaning clothes and stuffing for mattresses or car seats.

Fibre recycling technologies do exist, but they are only used on a small scale. Generally, the techniques can be separated into mechanical and chemical recycling.

"Blends are most suitable for mechanical fibre recycling, where fabrics are shredded and pulled to transform them into fibres of shorter length," says Prajapati. Shorter fibre length produces fabrics of lower quality and strength, so the results from this kind of recycling can't be used for clothing. Instead these tend to then be "downcycled" to produce other composite fibre materials such as thermal insulation or carpet for use in the building industry. Some researchers have found ways of creating noise insulation from old textile fibres.

Chemical fibre recycling for fabrics with large quantities of one type of fibre, for example polyester and nylon are well established, says Prajapati. "However, they consist of multiple processes and additional chemicals, making the process and resulting yarn or fabric costly," she says.

There has been success on a smaller scale to effectively separate natural and synthetic blends and capture both types of fibres, without losing either fibre in the process. However, scaling up this technology to an industrial scale remains the challenge.

One group of researchers led by Carol Lin, a chemical engineer at the City University of Hong Kong, has developed a technique for recycling fabrics made from cotton and polyester blends by feeding them to fungi. The fungi Aspergillus niger - which typically forms a black mould on grapes - produces an enzyme that can break down the cotton into glucose that can then be used turned into syrup. The remaining pure polyester fibres can then be reused to make new clothing, they claim. Poly-cotton blends are now among the most popular fabrics for use in cheap clothing, commonly used in t-shirts, shirts and even jeans.

Lin and her team have since refined the process so it can be done on a larger scale using industrially produced cellulose enzymes, and have been working with the clothing retailer H&M to examine what impact this recycling process might have on its textile waste.

Austrian researchers have also developed techniques using enzymes that allow them to turn old wool clothing into a material that can be used as a resin or adhesive.

But if we ever hope to make our clothing sustainable, more fundamental changes to the clothing industry will need to be made. Fabrics, fibres and garments will need to be designed in ways that make them easier to recover and recycle.

"Recycling needs to be incorporated into the current system to make it more circular," says Prajapati. "Therefore, the way we design clothes needs to change, it needs to facilitate recycling."

One option is to create new types of materials altogether, from different sources, that either won't have the same impact on the environment or might be easier to recycle. Some are even looking at turning other types of waste - such as off milk - into clothing.

When milk turns sour, it separates into whey at the bottom and protein flakes on top. When you remove the whey, you are left with a kind of cottage cheese.

"This cottage cheese is put into a machine that works like a noodle machine," says Anke Domaske, founder of QMilk, a company that has been developing new types of biodegradable fibres in Hemmingen, Germany. "Together with water you create a dough. At the end there is a spinneret with holes so fine that you do not end up with noodles, but fine fibres that are thinner than hair."

The company then spins these fibres into yarns, which it says have a silk-like texture. These can then be used to make jersey or woven fabrics, or other textiles like felt. Crucially, when a garment made completely from QMilk fibres is no longer wanted, it can simply be composted at home, Domaske says.

QMilk isn't the only company creating textiles from unusual sources.

After working for years at a design company in Germany, Renana Krebs saw behind the scenes how poor the textiles and clothing industry is for the environment. She vowed to do something about it and in 2016, she started Algalife, making fibres and dyes from algae.

Algae is already widely used in the beauty industry, in certain foods and it is used to make biofuels. "After learning about all those industries, and the benefits that we get from algae, we asked 'why not to do this for textiles?'" says Krebs.

One benefit is the algae are harvested in a closed system, meaning there is no freshwater used in the process at all. All the algae need to grow is water and sunlight. By extracting natural colourings from different types of algae, Krebs and her team have been able to combine these with enzymes and fixative agents - which help to bind the pigment to a fabric - from synthetic and natural sources, including oak galls, pomegranate rind and juniper needles.

They have also been able to produce fibres that can turned into yarns by purifying proteins from the algae or even using them to produce a bio-oil that can be turned into bioplastic fibres.

Prajapati has also been working with colleagues at De Montfort University to produce enzymes that could potentially make the clothes dying process more sustainable.

Currently most textiles are coloured using synthetic dyes, which are petroleum derivatives, and patterned with complex processes. These processes can require temperatures of up to 100C for cotton, nylon and wool, but higher for polyester and other synthetic fibres. On top of this, the process requires high pressures, long processing times and the use of additional chemicals such as acids and alkalis, which are harmful towards the environment in large quantities.

Prajapati and her colleagues have been developing processes that use enzymes so that textile dyes and patterning of fabrics can be done temperatures as low as 50C, at atmospheric pressure and pH conditions around neutral without the use of additional chemicals.

"The key advantages over conventional methods include simpler processing of textiles, the elimination of pre-manufactured dyes and opportunities for multiple colours to be achieved through simple alteration of processing conditions," she says.

Pigments made by Algalife have similar benefits, plus the added benefit of being created from renewable sources, says Krebs. You can even drink the dye they produce, she says. Algalife is now working with a major retail fashion brand and hope to have clothes made from algae in stores by 2021.

Other major brands across the fashion industry are starting to pay attention to the demand for more sustainable practices. Companies like Adidas, that recently announced a range of trainers made from ocean plastic. High street retailer Zara also announced in 2019 that it would be using only sustainable materials by 2025.

"Using recycled, rather than virgin, materials offers an opportunity to drastically reduce non-renewable resource inputs and the negative impacts of the industry, like CO2 emissions, water and chemical use," says Prajapati.

But some are sceptical about how committed some large brands are to sustainability, accusing them of "greenwashing", which the companies deny.

Zara was one of the original inventors of the fast fashion system as we know it, says Clare Press, Australian Vogue's sustainability editor-at-large and author of the book Wardrobe Crisis. "Let's not pretend people shop at Zara for heirlooms to pass down through the generations," she says. "In the last 20 years the fashion system has changed completely, moving away from seasonal drops towards near-instant gratification. Waiting six months for a runway look seems crazy to a new generation of fashion fans raised on Instagram and 'see now, buy now'."

So while recycling and more sustainable fabrics will be a key part of the solution, consumers too will need to change their behaviour if we hope to lessen the impact that the fashion industry is having on our planet.

"We need to slow down, take a little time to reconnect with our clothes and appreciate them again," says Press. "Remember that whatever you are wearing, it took both physical and creative resources to make it."

--
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"The current fashion system uses high volumes of non-renewable resources, including petroleum, extracted to produce clothes that are often used only for a short period of time, after which the materials are largely lost to landfill or incineration," says Chetna Prajapati, who studies ways of making sustainable textiles at Loughborough University in the UK.

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Article: Talking to Kids about Fast Fashion

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Article: Talking to Kids about Fast Fashion

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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/family/article/talking-to-kids-about-fast-fashion-and-the-environment

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Scrolling through TikTok, your kids probably see goofy jokes, lip-synching videos ... and lots and lots of clothes. That's because fashion hauls-videos in which an influencer rips open packages stuffed with new clothes and models them in front of the camera-are all over social media.

On TikTok, "#haul" videos have racked up 13.2 billion views; on Instagram, 2.5 million posts include the hashtag. And if you've ever found yourself on the receiving end of a child begging for new clothes they've seen on social media, you know how tough it can be to argue against an influencer.

But children probably aren't aware of the environmental impact that experts fear these videos are having. The content often features what's known as fast fashion: mass-produced, ultra-trendy, inexpensive clothing made with cheap fabrics that are made at breakneck speeds by low-wage workers. In fact, a report from Rest of World, a journalism nonprofit organization, found that between July and December 2021, fast-fashion company Shein added between 2,000 and 10,000 new styles to its app each day.

Fashion haul videos have actually been a thing on YouTube since at least 2008. The problem? According to Aja Barber, sustainability consultant and author of Consumed, a book that explores the impact of fast fashion on the environment, this content encourages a model of consumption that's hurting the planet. Indeed, research from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company shows that consumers are buying about 60 percent more clothing per person than in 2000, and they keep the items half as long. And quickly producing massive amounts of cheap products has an environmental impact, from growing crops for raw materials to transporting the goods to incinerating the castoffs.

"You see TikTok haul videos where someone buys thousands of dollars of merchandise from a brand, and it's a big box of stuff that they might only wear once," Barber says. And children often mimic trends they see on social media, including fashion hauls that aren't good for the planet. Here's how to talk to kids about their haul-filled feeds-and the environmental impact of their closets.

The environmental cost of fashion

Accurate numbers around the fashion industry are difficult to come by. But the World Economic Forum estimates that about 150 billion new clothing items are produced each year, and the United Nations has reported that the energy-intensive production, transportation, and packaging of all these garments generates nearly 10 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Although all fashion production has an environmental impact, Barber says the lightning-fast speed and enormous scale of fast fashion exacerbate the problems.

Fast fashion's cycle of waste often begins with its raw materials. A study published in the journal Nature found that polyester-an inexpensive synthetic fiber made from petroleum-accounted for 51 percent of fashion textile production in 2018 and is often the fabric of choice for fast fashion manufacturers. When washed, polyester clothing releases hundreds of thousands of tiny plastic fibers, which make their way into the environment through wastewater. Researchers from the Institute for Polymers, Composites, and Biomaterials estimated that 35 percent of ocean microplastics comes from synthetic clothing.

Moving the materials through a global supply chain that relies on cheap labor also has an emissions cost. For example, a raw material like cotton might be grown in Pakistan, shipped to China to manufacture the textile, and then shipped again to Bangladesh to sew the garment.

Finally, the clothing is transported to consumers across the globe. In the past, most clothing was shipped to retailers in container boats, but because fast fashion depends on churning out new trends as quickly as possible, air cargo shipments are becoming increasingly common. A report from the environmental consulting group Quantis estimated that switching just one percent of clothing transportation from boat to airplane could increase the industry's carbon footprint by 35 percent.

Because fast fashion is designed to be discarded after a few uses-both because it's made with less durable materials and quickly falls out of style-much of it ends up incinerated or in landfills. In the United States, over nine million tons of clothing and footwear ended up in landfills in 2018, up from 1.3 million tons in 1960, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And fast fashion garments donated to charity are often sent to low- or middle-income countries, only to be landfilled or burned there, according to reporting from ABC.

Getting kids to care about clothes and the planet

Members of Gen Z and Alpha (ages 12 to 26 and kids 11 and younger, respectively) are famously passionate about fixing environmental problems, from participating in school climate strikes to filing environmental lawsuits. So why can't they quit fast fashion culture?

Barber suspects that children and teens simply may not fully understand the impact of fashion on the environment. "I think the average young person doesn't realize that, for example, polyester is plastic, and it comes from fossil fuels," she says. "When we talk about plastic waste, people are thinking about food packaging, but they're not thinking about fashion."

And the pull of all those cheap clothes worn by a supercool influencer is hard to resist-even for eco-savvy kids. After all, fun TikTok and YouTube videos don't show the costs of creating the clothes. But parents can take steps to make sure young viewers understand their impact on the environment and discourage overconsumption. Here's how to get started.

Make the environment part of the purchase. A kid might think they're being budget-minded when they beg for cheap clothes, but parents can help shift their mindset to also focus on the eco-impacts of their purchase. Before you agree to click "buy," ask them to find out things like where the item was made, how many miles the item would fly, and the carbon emissions produced by that flight. ( This clothing calculator can help put things in perspective.) Then see if they'd rather find a more sustainable, local option.

Reveal the influencers. If your child shows you a haul video and asks to buy a new piece of clothing, Michelle Nelson, a professor in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, recommends asking pointed questions so they understand that haul videos are often advertisements: Why is that person showcasing this particular fashion brand? Do you think that they were paid? How much do you think this haul would cost someone who isn't receiving the items for free?

"If we don't know that we're being persuaded, then maybe we're not so critical of the message," Nelson says. "[Children] think 'Oh, that influencer looks really cool and I see my friends are liking it.' If we don't know that it's advertising, we're just more susceptible." ( Here's how to talk to your kids about advertising -including influencer content.)

Buy slow, buy better. If your child is asking for a non-essential item, tell them to ask you about it again in a week or two. Taking time to think about a purchase can sometimes be all a kid needs to lose interest. If they're still asking, look for a quality garment made of lower-impact materials (think plant-based linens or wool). Third-party certifications from independent review organizations like Certified B Corps and Fair Trade Certified brands can indicate that an item has been made sustainably.

Be thoughtful about purchases. Help kids build healthy purchasing habits by establishing some of your own fashion do's and don'ts. For example, limit everyone's clothing purchases to one item per month. You can also give children a fixed allowance so they think through purchases more carefully and start learning about budgeting. ( Read why too much stuff can make kids unhappy.)

Buy secondhand. "I think it's hard to say, 'Oh, don't buy this stuff'-I don't want to be the Debbie Downer all the time," Barber says, who speaks with school groups in the United Kingdom about fast fashion and consumerism. Instead, she encourages them to consider buying the brands they love secondhand to lighten their impact on the environment-and their wallets. Websites like Depop, Poshmark, and threadUP are places to start, but supporting a local shop is a great way to cut out packaging waste and shipping emissions.

Spot "greenwashing." Some fast fashion brands have launched sustainability initiatives to lessen the environmental impact of their clothing, but some consumer protection groups say these claims can be misleading. Companies aren't actually required to disclose their social and environmental practices or information about their supply chains, so work with your kids to do some extra research. Fashion Revolution ranks 250 of the world's largest fashion brands on the transparency of their social and environmental practices; you can also search for clothing brands using Rank a Brand.

Use social media for good. Fashion influencers often focus on external qualities, says Rachel Rodgers, an associate professor in the Applied Psychology Program for Eating and Appearance Research at the Northeastern University Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Instead, she suggests that parents focus on other influences in their child's life. "For example, [compliment] a child on their qualities and achievements, not their outfit," she says. Rodgers also suggests that parents encourage kids to fill their social media feeds with content that reflects their interests instead of #hauls. Whether it's baking, dancing, or crafting, content that aligns with who they are can make kids' feeds more holistic and less consumeristic.

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Talking to kids about fast fashion and the environment

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TikTok 'haul' videos promote cool clothes-but children likely aren't aware that the content could be impacting the planet.

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Virtual Field Trip: The True Cost of Fast Fashion

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Virtual Field Trip: The True Cost of Fast Fashion

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14KFkpjN4_rVnlkH1UL8780xKK1ddRLlRQucUCaOlpT8/edit?usp=sharing

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https://www.textilemountainfilm.com/

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TEXTILE MOUNTAIN - The Hidden Burden of our Fashion Waste

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Europeans throw away 2 million tonnes of textiles each year. Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned.
Many of us donate our unwanted clothes to charity shops & clothing collection banks - but do we really know what happens to them then?

Globally, 70% of our donated clothing is baled and sold to textile merchants who ship them overseas for resale in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Textile Mountain exposes the social and environmental cost of the second hand clothing trade, tracing the path of our unwanted garments from recycling bins in Europe to landfills and waterways in the Global South.

Shot in Kenya, Ireland and Belgium, this film calls on us to re-imagine the way the way we design, wear and reuse our clothes - so that our fashion waste no longer becomes another country's burden.

Watch the film (English version)

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TEXTILE MOUNTAIN - The Hidden Burden of our Fashion Waste

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Textile Mountain exposes the social and environmental cost of the second hand clothing trade, tracing the path of our unwanted garments from recycling bins in Europe to landfills and waterways in the Global South.

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Report: Toxic Threads--Water and Fashion

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Report: Toxic Threads--Water and Fashion

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https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200418055241/http://p3-raw.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/toxics/Water%202012/ToxicThreads01.pdf

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Blog: The Fashion Industry is Drastically Contributing to Climate Change

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Blog: The Fashion Industry is Drastically Contributing to Climate Change

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https://calpirg.org/blogs/blog/cap/fashion-industry-waste-drastically-contributing-climate-change

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By: Valentina Portela, CALPIRG Intern

Fashion, fashion, fashion... I have to say, I am quite an addict when it comes to buying clothes and trying new popular trends. I'm sure many of us enjoy shopping and trying new styles of shoes, jeans, tops, jackets, and more to communicate who we are to the world. But have you ever thought about where all that clothing goes after you're done with it? Do you donate it? Recycle it? Trash it? What about the clothes that don't get sold in the first place?
85% Of Our Clothes End Up In Landfills Or Burned
It might come to a surprise to learn that around 85% of textiles thrown away in the U.S. are dumped into landfills or burned -- including unused textiles and unsold clothes. Furthermore, it is estimated that the average American throws away about 37kg/81 pounds of clothes every year-- that's the weight of an 11-year-old child! And that's only counting the U.S. To give you an idea of how big the global textile waste crisis is, imagine a garbage truck fully filled with textiles and clothes being thrown into landfills every single second of the day, every year.

Even if we tried to recycle all of our old clothes, it's important to acknowledge that a lot of these textiles -- about 60 percent of them -- are not recyclable in the first place, which is why they end up in landfills or burned. Many of our clothes are made with plastic. Some of the synthetic fibers in our clothes are called polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or most commonly known as polyester, nylon, acrylic and others. These fibers are made from crude oil, which makes them almost impossible to reuse in other ways -- meaning they cannot be recycled or composed. There are numerous eco-friendly fibers that could replace plastic in clothes, but because there are no restrictions or laws, the fashion industry continues to actively participate in using plastic fibers in their clothes.
Manufactures And Clothing Retailers Are Causing This Pollution
A lot of the clothing waste comes from manufacturers-- 13 million tons of textiles each year-- and from clothing retailers themselves. Manufacturers overproduce the supply of clothing, and retailers end up overstocked-- as seasons change, the unsold supply ends up thrown away to landfills. Manufacturers are in control of what fibers they use in their textiles, and they are in control of how much product they produce. The fashion industry overproduces products by about 30-40% each season, contributes roughly 10% of all global carbon emissions and is the world's second worst offender in terms of water and plastic pollution. Remember the plastic fibers in your clothes? Our clothes are eventually contributing to the microplastic pollution in our oceans- harming marine life and contributing to climate change. Clearly, textile overproduction is harming our planet.

If we are aware of how overproduction of clothing and other textiles directly affects the planet and the human population, why do manufacturers and retailers keep continuing this cycle? Also, why do they continue to use plastic fibers when there are more earth-friendly materials that can be used instead of plastic?

It's time for clothing manufacturers to start doing their part, end their wasteful practices and stop destroying overstock clothing. As consumers, we can start supporting eco-friendly manufacturers because -- let's face it -- waste is out of fashion.

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The Fashion Industry Waste Is Drastically Contributing To Climate Change

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By: Valentina Portela, CALPIRG Intern Fashion, fashion, fashion... I have to say, I am quite an addict when it comes to buying clothes and trying new popular trends. I'm sure many of us enjoy shopping and trying new styles of shoes, jeans, tops, jackets, and more to communicate who we are to the world.

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https://www.greenpeace.org/international/act/detox/

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Detox My Fashion - Greenpeace International

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Global fast fashion brands are churning out more clothes than the planet can handle.

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https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/fashion/overview

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Each year millions of tonnes of clothes are produced, worn, and thrown away. Every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truck load of clothes is burnt or buried in landfill. The fashion industry is one of the major contributors of plastic microfibres entering our oceans. To solve the problem, we must reinvent fashion itself.

We've created a vision for the fashion industry to redesign the way clothes are made and used. Our vision will require industry and government to work together. It will need significant investment, large-scale innovation, transparency, and traceability. But if we take these actions together and get started today, this new system can scale fast.

Every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truck load of clothes is burnt or buried in landfill.

Our vision for a circular fashion industry

A circular economy for fashion creates better products and services for customers, contributes to a resilient and thriving fashion industry, and regenerates the environment. Together, we can build an industry that designs products to be used more, made to be made again and made from safe and recycled or renewable inputs.

View our vision

The CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards

Cementing circular design for fashion at the top of the Italian fashion industry's creative agenda. As part of the Foundation's continued Partnership with Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI), we are pleased to be collaborating on the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards in September 2023, for the second year running. These Awards celebrate the creatives driving an industry that is regenerative by design and recognise those leading the way in applying circular economy principles to their work. Through highlighting those redefining the future for the fashion industry, we hope to inspire creatives and designers everywhere to not only embrace their role in reimagining products, but also the services, and systems, that will deliver them and keep them in use - and to realise their potential in the transition to a circular economy.

Explore the awards

Circular fashion examples

Toxin-free, recyclable clothing

Most high-performance jackets with waterproofing and insulation are made from an array of materials that are hard to separate and recycle. To overcome this problem, Italian clothing brand Napapijri has simplified its design so that the entire jacket - fabric, filling and trimmings - is manufactured from one polymer. The material is durable and high performing, but is also easily recycled.

Customers are encouraged to recycle their old jackets with the promise of a 20% discount off future purchases when they return their used garments.

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How we can transform how we design, use, and reuse clothes to tackle fashion waste. Use our resources to explore solutions, and join the mission to create a circular fashion industry.

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Article: Working Conditions for Textile Workers

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Article: Working Conditions for Textile Workers

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https://www.sustainyourstyle.org/en/working-conditions

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Statistics: Fashion Industry Environmental, Waste, and Recycle Statistics

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Statistics: Fashion Industry Environmental, Waste, and Recycle Statistics

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https://edgexpo.com/fashion-industry-waste-statistics/

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"I am so grateful for this opportunity! Thank you for the bold questions @edgexpo" 🙏🏾

"Typically, the visual form or design is based on the functionality, but the function of the clothing that I make differs from looking posh or preventing the cold. My clothes are designed for people to focus on the act of wearing the clothing."

"Let's keep fighting the fight for fashion as art."

- Hera Zhou | Shanghai

- 배혜진 Hyee Jin Bae | Seoul, Korea

- Maryanne E. Mokoko | USA/Cameroon

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Fashion Industry Environmental, Waste, and Recycle Statistics

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Fashion Industry General Statistics The global textile and garment industry is valued at 3 trillion dollars, and accounts for 2 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).1 The global retail apparel and footwear market-value forecast: 2022 at 1.7 trillion dollars; 2023 at 2.0 trillion, with United States, China, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan accounting...

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Challenge Article: The High Cost of Fast Fashion 

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Challenge Article: The High Cost of Fast Fashion 

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https://jacobinmag.com/2017/06/fast-fashion-labor-prada-gucci-abuse-designer?fbclid=IwAR28O5l5gCbR60GaXHJHySfoeCIA3rk881REOmODeT6S_dQka74YzoyNs6k

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Campaigns against “fast fashion” scapegoat working-class consumers while doing little to improve the conditions of garment workers.

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Podcast: How Fast Fashion is turning Ghana into a dumping ground

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Podcast: How Fast Fashion is turning Ghana into a dumping ground

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09y41dw

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https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2021/10/05/textile-waste

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One of the most significant manufacturing industri