Sustainability - Industry Issues

WATER

The $2.5 trillion-dollar fashion industry is the second highest user of water worldwide², producing 20 percent of global water waste. The production of one cotton shirt requires 2700 litres – the amount a person drinks in 2.5 years. Producing one pair of jeans uses nearly 4,000 litres of water and globally we produce 6 billion units of denim annually³.

POLLUTION

Processes like bleaching or use of fabric softening chemicals can often be discharged into our waterway systems. But textile dyeing is the biggest offender in the fashion industry, the 2nd worst of all industries⁴, accounting for 200,000 tons of dyes lost to effluents per annum. 23% of all chemicals produced worldwide are used for the textile industry.⁵.

FABRIC POLLUTANTS

Washing clothes releases 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each year — the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles⁶. Many of those fibres are polyester, a plastic found in an estimated 60% of garments. Producing polyester releases two to three times more carbon emissions than cotton, and polyester does not break down in the ocean.

LANDFILL

On average, 35% of all materials in the production of garments as waste before reaching the final consumer. The average person buys 60% more items of clothing in 2020 than twenty years ago, but each garment is kept for half as long. 10% of discarded clothing is recycled, 8% re-used as second hand clothing, but 57% is sent to landfill.⁷.

CO2 EMMISSIONS

The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Greenhouse gas emissions will surge more than 50% by 2030⁸. Apparel and footwear together accounted for more than 3,990 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, total greenhouse gas emissions equal to 1.2 billion tons annually⁹. The current climate warming trend is most likely the result of human activity since the mid-20th century¹⁰.

FABRIC TYPES

Specific fabric types are more intensive or polluting than others. The traditional production of cotton as an example, requires greater irrigation needs compared to all other crops, is chemically sprayed the most, and is responsible for the largest amount of deforestation. It takes 10,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of cotton, approx 2,700 litres to make a standard t-shirt¹¹.

Synthetics such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, are plastic-based materials that use very little water to produce and no agricultural land. However, man-made fibres are dependent on the petrochemical industries which are heavy fossil fuel extractors¹². In addition, regular domestic washing of synthetics release approx 1,900 inidividual micro-plastic fibres into our water systems, an estimated 190,000 tons annually, and ingested by marine life¹³.

Animal-based materials, wool, leather and fur, have both positive and negative impacts depending on what is used and how it was produced. Protein-based fibres, such as wool, accounts for 2% of textile use and safely biodegrades. But leather-based products account for huge methane emissions with livestock accounting for 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gases¹⁴.