In the abyss of textiles
Every year, more than 100 billion items of clothing and accessories are sold across the world: consumption that has doubled in only 15 years and that illustrates the new phenomenon of “disposable fashion”.
This addiction to fashion and to compulsive clothes buying translates into heavy environmental consequences.
New seasonal collections, lower and lower prices, sales and special offers, falling quality. Sale periods are announced like national events, and buying clothes has become a simple, easy, harmless gesture, and yet one with a heavy impact.
Between the use of chemical substances that are harmful to the production and manufacture of fibres, the waste of resources caused by the overconsumption of clothing, and the pollution generated by the kilometres a garment travels before reaching the shop, fashion is clearly one of the most polluting industries in the world.
The fashion industry thus produces 20% of the world's waste water and 10% of global carbon emissions, which is more than all the emissions from international flights and maritime shipping put together.
Once in our wardrobes, the care of our clothes, specifically of synthetic fibres, is the source of 500,000 tonnes of plastics dumped into the ocean each year, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles.
This consumption is the 4th largest area of consumption in the EU after food, housing and transport. It is also the second source of pressure on land use (after food), as well as a considerable amount of chemical and water pollution, as well as various negative social impacts.
Yet less than 1% of our textiles are recycled and every second the equivalent of a rubbish truck of textiles is buried underground or burned. If nothing changes, the fashion sector will use a quarter of the world carbon budget by 2050, warns the United Nations Environment Programme.
Because every citizen can contribute, on their own scale, to the development of a more sustainable fashion, Army of Nature is launching its campaign to make all social actors aware of the impacts of our overconsumption of textiles, while giving ideas for reducing it.
Repairing your clothes rather than throwing them away, buying second-hand rather than new, recycling what can no longer be worn and above all avoiding compulsive, unthinking purchases. There is no shortage of solutions for halting this waste and the pollution it causes.
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