Did you know

Waste

In the UK, we throw 235 million items of clothing into landfill every year! That’s 11 million garments per week, and equivalent to the weight of the Empire State Building (Ecobahn).

Globally, over 50 billion items of clothing are disposed of after less than a year of use. 80% of this waste (40 billion items) is then incinerated, creating GHG emissions, and 20% (10 billion items) are sent to landfill where they release harmful microplastics into the soil.

If you extend the life of a garment by 9 months you could reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by approximately 20% – 30% each (UK Parliament, 2019).

Just a 10% increase in second-hand clothing sales can cut water consumption by 4%, and CO2 emissions by 3% (WRAP, 2021).

Production

Fast fashion causes more GHG emissions than all international flights and shipping combined.

By stopping the overproduction of garments, the industry could reduce its CO2 emissions by 158 million tonnes over the next decade (McKinsey & Company, 2020).

Fast fashion is draining the world's water resources. 5 trillion litres of water are used each year for fabric dyeing alone, enough to fill 2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. And on top of that, it produces almost 20% of the world's waste-water.

Textile mills use approximately 2,000 different chemicals for textile processing which leak into natural ecosystems and disrupt the food chain.

Packaging, Transport & Retail

By 2030, CO2 could be reduced by 308 million tonnes if packaging, transport and retail operations become more sustainable (McKinsey & Company, 2020).

Approximately 2 tonnes of clothing are bought every 60 seconds in the UK. Producing nearly 50 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Per month, this is greater than flying a plane around the world 900 times (OXFAM, 2019).