The fashion industry, which has always been praised for its productive and cultural contributions, has turned into one of the most environmentally damaging sectors in the world. Its impact stretches across natural resources and climates. From piling up in masses in landfills, polluting and clogging water, and making air unbreathable to destroying the balance in the earth’s resources and atmospheres, fashion waste is making life impossible on the planet.
What is Fashion Waste?
The term fashion waste refers to the useless materials naturally produced during the manufacturing of textile products and thrown away afterwards. It also includes worn-out clothes and other materials like wastewater, plastic waste, and toxic dyes discarded or discharged after their use.
Though the term fashion waste mostly highlights the wastage related to garments and fabrics, it has more branches. Any poisonous discharge of non-biodegradable waste that pollutes energy and natural elements like earth, water, and air during or after the manufacturing and use cycle of garment products falls under the definition of fashion waste.
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Key Environmental Impacts of Fashion Waste
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Landfill Overflow
Much of the fashion waste is synthetic fibres such as polyester, nylon, and acrylic. These elements take about centuries to decompose and mix with soils or never decompose. There are many regions on the earth where miles after miles have been occupied by them. Massive piles of non-biodegradable materials are slowly eroding away, releasing poisons into the soil and air, making those regions unlivable. In 2018, the US single-handedly generated about 11.3 million tonnes of textile waste, about 66% of which ended up in landfills.
Water Clog and Pollution
Fashion waste contaminates water in two ways: chemically transforming its nature and clogging it with insoluble materials like plastic. Among chemical polluters, textile dyeing is the world's most common and second-largest water contaminant. Several rivers in Bangladesh and India, such as the Buriganga and Ganges, are carrying the mark of the devastating impact of textile waste.
Synthetic and plastic materials cause water clogs, impeding usual flow and preventing water from passing. They are the primary reason for clogged drains and sewerage. Synthetic clothes are also known to release microplastics into water during washing or when dumped in a water body. These microplastics are invisible, insoluble fibres that travel with river currents and fall into oceans, where they accumulate in large amounts and are consumed by marine life.
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Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Dumped clothing waste in landfills doesn’t only pile up and occupy spaces; during decomposition, it releases methane, one of the primary catalysts of the global greenhouse effect and about 25 times more potent than CO2.
Studies have found the fashion manufacturing industry to be highly energy-intensive. To manufacture a single shirt, about 2,700 litres of water are needed, and 2.1 kg of CO₂ is emitted. A pair of jeans produces 33.4 kg of CO₂ in their cotton cultivation and dyeing phases. At the current production acceleration rate in the fashion industry, the emission rate will increase by about 50% by 2030 without interference from regulatory bodies.
Resource Depletion
The fashion industry is one of the most resource-depleting sectors. For example, cotton covers around 2.5% of the world’s farmland and consumes about 24% of all insecticides and 11% of pesticides.
That’s a huge environmental cost for a single crop. Then there’s polyester, the most common fabric in today’s clothing, found in about 60% of garments. It’s made from crude oil, tying fast fashion directly to fossil fuel depletion.
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The impact doesn’t stop at raw materials. The dyeing and finishing stages of textile production are some of the most chemically intensive and responsible for nearly 20% of global industrial water pollution. Around 43 million tonnes of chemicals are poured into the process each year.
