Waste in Fashion. Our clothes are getting cheaper, they follow fashion more rapidly and were buying more and more of them. At the same time we hear more.

Waste in Fashion

Our clothes are getting cheaper, they follow fashion

more rapidly and we’re buying more and more

of them. At the same time we hear more about

poor working conditions in textiles factories, the growing threat of the greenhouse effect

andthe UK facing a crisis in disposing of its

waste.

What

do you know about waste

in the fashion industry?

a) $1million

b) $1trillion

c) $1billion

Question 1: How much do the world’s consumers spend on

fashion and textiles each year?

Answer: C. $1trillion

Question 2 : How much of the UK’s textiles and clothing is actually

manufactured (made) in Britain?

a. 25%

b. 75%

c. 20%

Answer: C.

20%... that’s

only a fifth!

Question 3: We export 281 thousand tonnes of textile products to the global market each year. But how much do

we import?

a) More

b) Less

c) The same

Answer: AThe UK imports a whopping 1,700 thousand tonnes of

clothing annually. That’s more than 6 times more than we export!

FACT:

In 2004 the UK imported

approximately 460 million T-shirts…

that’s over seven each.

This statistic gets even scarier when

you realise that each t-shirt has

probably been in 3 different

countries during its production – the

air miles alone are staggering!

Question 3: How much water do you think is wasted through the

clothes and textiles industry each year in the UK?

a) 70 million tonnes

b) 100 million tonnes

c) 10 million tonnes

Answer: C

The UK fashion & textile industry wastes

70 million tonnes of water, with a further

90 million tonnes of water used in the

production process. In addition to this

the industry is responsible for 3.1 million

tonnes of CO2 (carbon) emissions and 1.5

million tonnes of solid waste in the form

of discarded and unused threads, fabrics

and clothes.

Consumers in the UK spend about

£780 per head on clothing per year,

purchasing around 2.15 million

tonnes (that’s the equivalent of

more than 10,000 Angel of the North

sculptures - weighing 200 tonnes

each!)

Question 4: How much of this do

you think gets given to charities?

a. 12.5% - an eighth

b. 33% - a third

c. 50% - half

Answer: AOnly a measly 1/8 of our reusable textiles and clothing gets given to

charities*… UNCHARITABLE?!

* Source: http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainability/projects/mass/UK_textiles.pdf

Question 5: So what happens to the rest of it?

a) People get creative and make their own clothes or curtains?

b) It is recycled by local councils?

c) It gets disposed of in landfills?

Answer: C 74% gets disposed of in LANDFILLS.

IT’S THROWN AWAY!

That’s 30kg per person- or 120 t-shirts

each!

So think: how

wasteful are

you?