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There are some great clothing donation points in the corner of my apartment. One morning I had to wait in the back of a truck that stopped beside them. I saw two men in bright orange vests carrying white trash bags full of clothes behind them. Square truck, steel jaws open to reveal more of the bag stack.
After the year we’ve been through, enduring weeks and months at home, the urge to self-clean through closet cleaning seems universal. It has been documented in Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, while a writer from Vogue has turned livestream discussions of unused items into an Instagram hit.
Every 10 minutes, approx 6,000 kg of textiles disposed of in a landfill in Australia. On May 26, the federal minister for the environment, Susan Ley, hosted textile and clothing waste round table with participants from across the fashion industry who agreed a circular economy, where textiles are reused then recycled, it is very important to address this problem.
An important part of the circular textile economy is the system for collecting and sorting used clothes. This may sound simple, but given the huge volume of textile waste, it requires large-scale infrastructure and technology.
Textile recycling is tricky. Natural fibers require a different process than synthetics, and blended fibers are even more difficult to recycle. While technological solutions may come in the future, nowadays in Australia, most sorting is done manually which means physically checking each garment care label.
The good news is that cotton farmers are experimenting with returning shredded cotton to new crops, and an Australian start-up called BlockTexx recently secured $5.5 million in funding to build its first large-scale recycling facility in Logan, Queensland.
Blocktexx founder Adrian Jones said there was a need for policy interventions to regulate and manage textile waste. In his absence, the decisions we make about what to do with our old clothes are important. Let’s start with the pile we share on our bedroom floor: donate, sell, throw, save.
Donate
The rule for donating used clothing is: would you be proud to give it to a family member or friend? If the answer is no, then you need another solution. According to an impact study from Charitable Recycling Australia, 16.5% of donated textiles are resold in charity shops, 33% of goods are exported for reuse overseas, and 36% are recycled.
Although media reports that the sector is suffering from the amount of clothing thrown away, Omer Soker, CEO of the National Association of Charity Recycling Organizations, says they have the capacity for more.
It is important to wash your old clothes before donating them, and to separate items with missing buttons, broken zippers or stains.
Sell
According to ThredUp 2021 Resale Report, the used clothing market is projected to double in the next five years. Gen Z has ordered apps like Depop and TikTok to sell clothes. Old-school platforms like eBay and Facebook Marketplace are still thriving despite the rise of online consignment stores like Vestiaire, The RealReal and the newest in Australia, Poshmark.
Designers looking to embrace circularity and take advantage of the longevity of their clothing are working with this retailer. The RealReal has partnered with Stella McCartney, Burberry and Gucci, while Vestiaire has collaborated with the Alexander McQueen label.
Locally, Arnsdorf ran a recall program in March, and Kitx will launch an exchange program in August. Both programs encourage customers to exchange preloved items for vouchers.
Programs such as: Clothes Exchange facilitate large-scale exchange of clothes, which can be mirrored among friends, or better yet, items that are admired can be given to loved ones in the post.
throw away
While it may be tempting to clean up trash just by throwing socks, T-shirts, and weird jeans in the trash, trash is the last place textile waste should go. Even natural fibers will take a long time to decompose in a landfill, and synthetics will probably never break down.
A board study from Victoria found that textiles make up 3% of household waste, which is about the same as other waste categories that have special recycling streams such as plastic, glass, aluminum and steel.
Until this change, Soker says charities are happy to accept more textile clothing donations, as they have the infrastructure and capacity to ensure clothing is properly sorted, resold or recycled into washcloths.
It helps if clothing that cannot be used is bagged and labeled separately. Old T-shirts and jeans can also be cut and used for house cleaning.
Other alternatives to discarding unusable clothing are companies such as: top, which collects unwanted clothes for a small fee and sorts them for you. Fast fashion retailers like H&M and Zara often have trash can in their shop too.
Keep
The first items that enter the storage pile are the items we use once or twice a week. These clothes give us clues that can help us become better and sustainable buyers.
Wearing the clothes we already have is the fastest way to a sustainable fashion industry, and understanding our habits better can stop us from buying clothes we wouldn’t actually wear. Alongside my stack of stash, there is a subcategory of clothes that need changing or repairing.
Orsola DeCastro, founder of Fashion Revolution, advocates keeping, repairing, and wearing our clothes in her book, Loved Clothes Last. If (like me) you don’t know how to fix it yourself, he recommends using local repair shops, tailors and seamstresses who have the skills to fix and change things. In doing so, we help retain their industry and skills. Likewise, professional steaming or pressing can give new life to clothes.
Love
In my closet, there’s a growing collection of clothes I’ll never wear again but can’t bear to part with. I recently decided I would save it for my one year old niece. Maybe the orange cashmere coat I bought on my first trip to Milan will end up in her wardrobe, or maybe the shell wears my black silk chiffon jumpsuit for her formal wear. Either way, these pieces offer me (and him) a time capsule to a more beautiful part of my youth.
It’s worth considering what about this outfit evokes an emotional reaction and trying to remember that quality every time we buy something new.
Is the item in your hand something you want to give to someone you love? Something that makes you feel like a better version of yourself? Something you are proud to bring to your home?
This may be a high standard to set, but given how complicated it is to safely dispose of clothes and the high environmental price tag, this is a bar that has very few items to clean.
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Sources 2/ https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/jul/17/an-australian-guide-to-cleaning-out-your-wardrobe-textile-recycling-clothes-without-sending-them-to-landfill The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
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