HOW MUCH DOES GARMENT INDUSTRY ACTUALLY WASTE?
The fashion industry is one of the most wasteful industries in the world. We produce way more clothes than we need and we discard them after a couple of wears. And the worst part is, the majority of our clothes goes to landfill, even though we could easily reuse or recycle them.
How much waste does the fashion industry actually produce? An average consumer throws away 70 pounds (31.75 kilograms) of clothing per year. Globally we produce 13 million tons of textile waste each year 95% of which could be reused or recycled.
Different studies give different estimates on the total number of garments produced globally, falling between 80 billion to 150 billion pieces a year, before the corona crisis hit. "The 2020 Preferred Fiber and Materials Market Report reveals that the global fiber production has doubled in the last 20 years, reaching an all-time high of 111 million metric tons in 2019 and pre-COVID-19 results indicated potential growth to 146 million metric tons by 2030.”(1) Not all textile fiber gets used in fashion, but by an estimate at least a third of it does, given the volumes of new garments produced globally.
