Sustainabilty
In our groups, we were given another task to create a group A1 poster about sustainability. To begin our research we all looked into different aspects of what we wanted to put into our poster - denim, wood, primary research etc. I chose to look into the fashion industry's waste.
- Fashion in the UK lasts an average of 3.3 years before a garment is discarded
- 60% of clothes end up in landfill or are incinerated within the first year of their life (BOF)
- The average women wears only 40% of what's in her wardrobe.
These are just some of the facts I found out when researching into the waste topic. The one I found particularly interesting was the fact that the average woman only wears 40% of the items in her wardrobe. As someone who has forever got 'nothing to wear,' I can completely see how this fact is true, however when getting rid of my clothes I pass them onto my mum or sisters. For people who do not do this, where do they send their clothes to? Landfill? Charity shops? But did you know, only 10% of clothes in a charity shop are resold before being sent to poorer countries or are sent to landfill?
According to The Guardian, in the fashion industry it has been rumoured garment waste will be the ‘next big scandal.’ This is because the levels of production and consumption are said to increase as fashion waste is continuing to become a crisis for the environment. Creating harmful levels of waste that contributes to greenhouse gases and threatens the global commitments to carbon reductions, means that the industry is the second most polluting industry.
I also found out that extending the life of a garment by an extra nine months reduces environmental impact by 20-30%. Instead of throwing away old clothes, up cycling is a way to create something new out of something old. Maybe a pair of old jeans into a skirt or an old jumper into a crop top, the ideas are endless. Low cost, low quality garments mean we are creating so much more waste for the industry, so next time you go to throw away that t-shit you've worn twice, remember the planet you live on and that you are causing more harm than good.
