Consumerism is thriving and fashion remains obnoxiously fast. On the surface, it all seems wonderfully glamorous, but the trends are becoming highly unfashionable. It also demonstrates how quickly these clothes are being discarded. This was in , pre-pandemic. The shift to shopping online, with promises of free returns to lure more consumers, has worsened the problem. An article in The Atlantic a year ago estimated that billions of dollars in returned products are thrown away in the US every year β and the fashion industry is no exception.
Apart from taking up space in landfills already buckling under the weight of unsustainable practices, textile waste can take more than years to decompose, while generating methane gas and leaching chemicals and dyes into groundwater and soil. To understand the extent of the problem globally, Ghana offers a sobering case study.
Globally, the figures are coming to light, but locally the problem is yet to be quantified. The inability to quantify the problem locally was a challenge for recycling start-up Rewoven. It has allowed them to increase the amount of textile waste they handle and to grow their team. What started as an idea in Cape Town to provide jobs for 20 women by tapping into the clothing-waste industry has grown into a national operation that equips aspiring entrepreneurs with the skills and resources they need to participate in TCB's resell initiative through which unemployed mothers are able to sell clothes in the circular economy; its remake initiative through which seamstresses repurpose textile waste, fabric, trims and cut samples; and its appliance repair and trading business which tackles the problem of e-waste.
In 12 years TCB has diverted Last year alone they received 2-million donations from their retail partners, translating to a real opportunity for unemployed South Africans to generate an income. Clothes to Good is a textile recycling and disability empowerment organisation which recycles between 15 and 20 tonnes of clothes a month. All post-consumer and textile waste is reused, repaired or donated; upcycled, downcycled; shredded for use in mattress, insulation or motor industries; or, in rare instances when textiles cannot be repurposed, incinerated.
The organisation views waste as an asset. We just need to be aware of the challenges and be honest and open about them.
