Fast Fashion Needs a Green Makeover

A more circular economy in textiles will look good on everyone

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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.

Almost one third of the clothes produced every season are never sold and may go straight to landfills.