Clothing waste is SO last season

Clothes, the items we use to showcase our personality, dress to impress, or simply to keep ourselves warm, clean and dry shouldn’t be a source of eco-anxiety. But vast amounts of textile waste from our clothing, and fast fashion in particular, are a growing source of environmental harm.

Clothing headed for the landfill

It is estimated that of the millions of tons of clothing generated annually, around 65% of it ends up in landfills within a year of purchase. In Illinois, clothing and other household textiles make up 4.6% of the waste stream, according to Chicago Textile Recycling. Since Illinois produces ~19 million tons of garbage per year – 23% more waste per capita than the national average – that’s around 874,000 tons of clothing ending up in Illinois landfills each year.

In our landfills, many fabrics don’t degrade quickly. It can take anywhere between a few months to a few hundred years for clothes to break down, depending on the fabric content. Widely used synthetic fibers like nylon and spandex can take as much as 200+ years to fully break down. This means that some of our most beloved items of clothing will outlast us, long after we stop wearing them. Everyone needs clothes, and fashion is an excellent means of expression, so how do we ensure that we can reduce clothing waste while still wearing clothes we love?

Fast fashion is accelerating the speed at which clothes enter landfills

A quickly moving trend cycle has given rise to an industry known as fast fashion, where companies create a lot of stock that is “on trend” in hopes of selling it. This practice leads to a massive amount of clothing waste, as most companies will simply dispose of their excess stock once the season is over by landfilling or burning that overstock. This practice is inherently wasteful.

Fast fashion clothing items tend to have a shorter lifespan, whether because they go out of style quickly or because they’re lower quality and rip or wear out quickly.

The best thing we can do to reduce clothing’s impact on our environment is to buy less of it — and that’s the antithesis of fast fashion.

Instead of turning towards fast fashion, try turning towards your neighbors

A clothing swap is an event where community members bring together clothes that are no longer right for their closet and you get to swap them out for something new-to-you.

Clothing swaps have benefits beyond just helping the environment. They allow you to clear out your closet, find new pieces of clothing you’ll love, and save money. Participating in one allows you to do all this while also preventing clothes from entering landfills. 

By opting for hand-me-down clothes and other pre-loved items from our friends and community members, we can avoid adding to the demand for frequently thrown out products of fast fashion. The slow fashion principals of reduce, reuse, and recycle can help guide us towards making more sustainable clothing choices. As consumers we can also advocate for fashion companies to be more accountable for their disposal practices around unsold products. 

As the seasons change, kickstart your closet cleanout by organizing a clothing swap within your neighborhood, school, or community. Saving the planet can be both fun AND fashionable.