Clothing in a material world

Never at any time in our history have there been so many clothes in the world, and another 69.7m tonnes added every year. Some clothing is now so cheap it is considered disposable. The fact we don’t make time to value or care for clothes like we did in past generations is leading to textile waste on a massive scale, with millions of tonnes of clothing going prematurely to landfill.

The fastest-growing household waste in Australia is clothing, according to a Council of Textile and Fashion Industries of Australia which said Australians sent $500 million of fashion clothing to the tip in 2013. It suggested this waste could be reduced if we removed spills quickly using baby wipes or sloshing with water to stop stains setting. And it said if we are like other Western countries, we only recycle 18 per cent of clothing compared to 55 per cent of paper and 63 per cent of metal.  Continue Reading →