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Textile Mountain
Textile Mountain
Our consumption of fast fashion is perhaps made more palatable by the ability to recycle our clothing. Donation bins are everywhere - there is even one near the Lyceum theatre. However, only a small percentage of these clothes are actually recycled; most end up incinerated or in a landfill. Americans generate 16 million tons of textile waste a year. Shein, just one of several fast fashion retailers, puts out 10,000 new products a day, and it times its markdowns to motivate increased consumption.
Fast fashion also makes use of non-renewable resources, especially petroleum used in polyester. This allows for cheap production, but it means that these clothes will not biodegrade. Even clothing made from natural fibers often include some non-biodegradable materials, in the tags and in the threads.
Several fast fashion brands advertise that they use "sustainable" or "conscious" clothing that make use of recycled polyester, yet recycled polyester is rarely made from recycled clothing. It instead comes from old plastic.
"Turning recyclable plastic bottles into non-recyclable clothing isn’t a sustainable solution for these brands."
"Turning recyclable plastic bottles into non-recyclable clothing isn’t a sustainable solution for these brands."
As one example of many, the Atacama Desert in Chile has become an ecological disaster. Approximately 59,000 tons of clothing are shipped there each year, to be distributed throughout the continent. However, only one-third of those clothing items actually circulate; the remaining 40,000 tons are simply dumped in the desert. The textile mountain that has formed there is so massive that it is visible from space.
"Next to oil, fashion in its broadest sense, fast fashion, to leather to denim, is the next biggest industrial polluter of the world’s waterways.” Filmmaker Mark Angelo in his documentary, RiverBlue.
"Next to oil, fashion in its broadest sense, fast fashion, to leather to denim, is the next biggest industrial polluter of the world’s waterways.” Filmmaker Mark Angelo in his documentary, RiverBlue.
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