People in the U.S. throw away at least 17 million tons of textiles every year—about 100 pounds of clothing per person. At the same time, unsold blouses, jackets, and other fashion-industry leftovers end up in dumps such as the one in Chile’s Atacama Desert, so vast as to be visible from space. Many of these items are fast fashion—made quickly, sold cheaply, and in style for too short a time because the industry relies on novelty to keep consumers buying.
Fashion poses more than an aesthetic problem, however. Every year the global garment industry emits up to 10 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas output and uses enough water to fill at least 37 million Olympic-size swimming pools, as an article in this magazine noted this past July. Cotton farming can involve massive quantities of pesticides, and yarn dyeing pollutes waterways with toxic chemicals. Synthetic polymers such as nylon are made with fossil fuels and shed microfibers with every wash.
It’s time to embrace a circular economy in fashion—one that reuses clothes, fabrics and yarn; recycles to the extent possible; and encourages producers and retailers to choose textiles and processes that minimize the input of raw resources such as cotton or synthetic polymers. Our choices as consumers matter as well. How we select fashion and follow trends is one accessible way we can make a dent in climate change.
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“We know the industry is overconsuming [resources] and overproducing in general,” says Laila Petrie, director general of Future Earth Lab, a nonprofit sustainability organization. “Volumes have continued to increase, and that can’t continue forever.” Almost one third of the clothes produced every season are never sold and may go straight to landfills.
The industry needs to be held responsible for scrutinizing entire supply chains and making modifications to reduce harm.
As awareness increases, many people are donating to or buying from thrift shops or, when they shop new, looking for “certified organic” labels. And many companies are trying to figure out how to remain profitable while producing less and ensuring that what they do make does less harm to people and the planet. Consumers and companies alone can’t solve such a vast ecological and climate problem, however. The industry needs to be held responsible for scrutinizing entire supply chains and making modifications to reduce harm, Petrie says.
Last year California enacted an extended producer responsibility (EPR) law for textiles, which requires brands with more than $1 million in global sales to pay for reuse, repair or recycling of their products. Producers will begin collecting used clothes in 2030, but where those garments will end up is still unclear. “We’re watching closely,” says Rachel Van Metre Kibbe, founder and CEO of advisory firm Circular Services Group. “It will be interesting to see whether brands can lead their own transition.” New York State and Washington State are currently considering similar bills.
EPR alone isn’t enough, however. What’s needed is “a fundamental shift in how we consume, make and sell products,” Van Metre Kibbe says. What she has in mind is a circular textile economy, which begins with designing products with their entire life cycle in mind.
For instance, a shirt may need to be made with only one type of yarn or with an easily recyclable blend and labeled with its constituent fibers so it can be readily sorted, making it easier to recycle. Advanced recycling technologies, such as using enzymes to separate polycotton blends into cotton and polymer fiber, are emerging, but they are still expensive and are only now starting to be scaled up. Supporting the development of these technologies would help generate the kind of innovation economy many people claim the U.S. needs.
The Americas Act, a bipartisan federal bill proposed in March 2024, seeks to provide incentives for textile reuse and recycling. If enacted, it would provide a huge impetus toward establishing a circular textile industry in the U.S. As one of the largest consumers of textiles, the U.S. has the potential to also become one of the largest recycling economies in the world. “There’s a real opportunity here—we just have to capture it,” Van Metre Kibbe says.
An initiative called Fibershed shows how such a system might work. It started in California in 2011, connecting regional farmers, designers and producers in a sustainable clothes-making economy. The concept has since spread to 79 communities around the world.
Still, a significant portion of our clothing will continue to be made abroad, in places where farmers and factory workers toil in precarious conditions to grow cotton or sew apparel. Roughly 100 million people, especially women in the Global South, stitch garments, and only a tiny fraction of them are paid a living wage. Companies that source from developing countries need to devise strategies alongside their suppliers—collaborating with garment manufacturers and with farmers’ groups—to improve conditions, Petrie suggests. Such a process can drive change in ways that are inclusive and therefore likely to be more effective.
As consumers, we can buy less, be more discerning in what we do acquire, buy or exchange used clothes, wear each garment longer, and find new uses for old pieces. Such practices were the norm decades ago, and some are returning.
In Germany, parents often buy kids’ clothes from children’s flea markets—particularly helpful because kids outgrow their clothes so fast. In India, old saris are overlaid and stitched together into a light quilt, a practice that has evolved into an art form. Moth holes in a beloved cardigan can be fixed either by discreet traditional darning or by the craft of “visible mending.” And in the U.S., people routinely shop consignment, thrift and online marketplaces for used clothes in good condition, keeping those items out of landfills for a while longer.
Meanwhile we must remember that consumers are an influential voting bloc. We can prod regulators and brands to take action, and we can exercise our values by deciding which brands to support. What we wear every day is something over which we can and should exert a great deal of power. Deserts should not be full of unwanted T-shirts. Our waterways should not be full of fashion-related microplastics.
