adminser Fashion as a business depends on the obsolescence and sale of old clothing to make way for newer ones. Even without trends, it is inevitable that post-consumer fabrics, such as garments, will be produced. Clothes become worn out. Clothes get tattered, stained, and sweaty if not torn. As our bodies change, we grow out of these garments. Where do these old garments end up? They create huge piles of waste. Some of it is resold, but most of it gets thrown out because textiles cannot be recycled.
Sustainability-minded textile and garment producers need to consider the important question of where old textiles go when consumers are done with them.
The same reason why recycling facilities sort metals, plastics, and paper is that different fabric types, such as polyester and cotton, can’t be spun into new material. Even if new methods are being developed to break down the threads in a uniform manner, piles of old clothes contain extra items such as trims, zippers, and buttons.
Reselling old clothes is the current model to achieve circularity within the replaceability system (to keep textiles off landfills). Even collectors and resellers like The Salvation Army and The Goodwill (in the United States) are overwhelmed with old consumer products, far more than they can handle. The influx of old consumer goods is constant. According to the EPA, Americans produce 16 million tons of textile waste each year.
Some secondhand sellers sell and send their old clothes to foreign markets in order to make room. Around 700,000 tonnes of used clothing is sent abroad each year. The negative effects of which is another article.
The piles of clothes that are not fit for resale and do not have too many trimmings can be sold to a textile recycler. They will shred the clothing, and the thread fluff they produce is used in housing or car insulation.
TerraCycle is a new global reseller that aims to combat the lack of textile recycling. The US-based company helps both companies and consumers recycle nearly every type of waste.
TerraCycle collects unwanted textiles or scraps from consumers or businesses in boxes that can be purchased. The fabrics are then separated into categories (such as cotton, nylon, etc.) and reused, recycled, or upcycled as necessary.
Donate NYC is managed by the Department of Sanitation in New York. It offers the same service via drop-off boxes and designated drop-off locations.
EPA estimates the recycling rate of textiles in footwear and clothing at only 13 percent, based on information provided by the American Textile Recycling Service.
Instead of relying solely on non-committal or haphazard recycling efforts, could companies that create this waste problem take matters into their hand and use post-consumer waste in their supply chains?
Instagram has a popular hashtag for #ReFashion. However, only a few household names are asking for gently used items and turning them into new clothes.
Patagonia’s ReCrafted collection was launched in 2019. Thousands of jackets and sweaters were remade from recycled Patagonia clothing. The ReCrafted items are priced at about the same as new products and can be found in the company’s Worn Wear division.
Eileen Fisher, who had been offering gift cards to her customers in exchange for damaged or unwanted clothing for ten years, ran out of space the same year. This brand then cleans and resells the donated items under its Renew Collection, which has generated a profit of about $3 million.
Usually, small designers and independents use old clothing or fabric scraps to create new designs. Here are some examples of what larger companies can try to do:
Re/Done Denim is a company that restores and resews denim to create new, hip silhouettes.
The designer Anne James New York sources her pieces from Poshmark, a reseller of gently upcycled clothing, and FabScrap, a waste-fabric collector (which collects now over-used clothing and fabrics from Rent The Runway). She also lines some of her garments with old silk bathrobes rather than buying new satin linings.
Boom Shankar, based in Australia, makes womenswear from secondhand wedding saris. They also use the Australia Post recycling program at TerraCycle.
ReFash, a platform based in India, features only upcycled clothing.
It’s very difficult to remake a garment that has embroidery or ruching. Each piece must be individually undone, restitched, or retailored. This means that it is impossible to produce a collection in large quantities and still perform traditionally. It is very slow. Each garment would require extra time and cost more to make “new” pieces from old ones. The inability to scale up production means that you can’t get large orders, which in turn means that it is difficult to make a profit.
It is possible that designers could pay for the laborious task of dismantling an old garment instead of purchasing fabric. It is unlikely that a finished garment will cost more than one yard of fabric.
To conclude, an effort by a corporation to use what already exists thoughtfully requires slow and perhaps backward work, which is completely antithetical to current industry systems.
The consumer’s attitude towards pre-loved products is changing. It might be worthwhile (or even invaluable) for companies to try to slow down production and integrate post-consumer recycling into their supply chains.
A second method is to keep pushing for the development of textile recycling systems that sort and break down different fibers to make them reusable. Circulose is a brand new company that has created a method to gently recover cotton from old clothes and create a new material.
Furniture and fine arts are other fields that can benefit from post-consumer waste textiles. Interior decoration offers many possibilities, such as using excess textiles to fill couches or weave carpets.
Shinique Smith and Isabel Varella both create sculptures from old clothes.
