FASHION: THE MAGNITUDE OF FASHION WASTE AND CONSUMPTION

Sustainability must be considered not only in terms of the considerations relating to a fashion garment or a fashion business, but also to the changing scale of fashion consumption. The amount of fashion bought in the world, both in terms of its global quantity and the amount bought or acquired by each person has dramatically increased.

We know that Clothing production worldwide has doubled since 2000 and yet the average British or European person keeps their clothing items for about half as long. Globally the vast majority of discarded clothing ends up in landfills or is incinerated, currently only 20% is collected for reuse or recycling.

‘The average person buys 60 percent more items of clothing and keeps them for about half as long as 15 years ago.’ Greenpeace 2017

Although Consumption and Waste is one of the main issues we face we also need to think about the magnitude (scale and volume) of fashion consumption in more depth, and begin to develop an understanding of how it relates to your own habits and practices.

Fashion consumption patterns

we are buying increased numbers of garments, and wearing them less, and how this dramatically changed in a very short period of time since the year 2000.

To further build on this data, The Pulse Report, 2017 states that if GDP continues to rise as predicted in both developed and developing worlds, “the overall apparel consumption will rise by 63%, from 62 million tons today to 102 million tons in 2030 - an equivalent of more than 500 billion T-shirts.”

If we position this alongside the knowledge that the average piece of clothing in the UK lasts for 3.3 years before being discarded (Wrap 2017), we can acknowledge that this is an enormous burden for the planet to bear. Design to reduce consumption is needed to reimagine ways in which fashion success might shift from quantity sold, to value gained.

Action needed

Voices in media and academia are bringing these data sets together to make visible to wider audiences the true magnitude of our collective behaviour.

Lucy Siegle wrote for The Guardian in 2017, “The way we get dressed now has virtually nothing in common with the behaviour of previous generations, for whom one garment could be worn for decades.”

Professor Kate Fletcher raised her concerns in 2017 regarding the way in which fashion companies are using reporting mechanisms to uphold existing systems based on material and economic growth, calling for a new conversation to be heard that, “dares to deal in hard choices about an industry totally dependent on a selling more material goods at greater speeds and volumes than natural systems can support.”