World’s largest textile producer and consumer throws away 26 million tons of clothes each year
At a factory in Zhejiang province on China’s eastern coast, two mounds of discarded cotton clothing and bed linens, loosely separated into dark and light colors, pile up on a workroom floor. Jacket sleeves, collars and brand labels protrude from the stacks as workers feed the garments into shredding machines.
And factories like this one are barely making a dent in a country whose clothing industry is dominated by “fast fashion” — cheap clothes made from unrecyclable synthetics, not cotton. Produced from petrochemicals that contribute to climate change, air and water pollution, synthetics account for 70% of domestic clothing sales in China.
But that is an elusive goal: Only about 20% of China’s textiles are recycled, according to the Chinese government — and almost all of that is cotton. According to a report this year from independent fashion watchdog Remake assessing major clothing companies on their environmental, human rights and equitability practices, there’s little accountability among the best-known brands.
Making matters worse, many Chinese consumers are unwilling to buy used items anyway, something the Wenzhou factory sales director, Kowen Tang, attributes to increasing household incomes.Still, among younger Chinese, a growing awareness of sustainability has contributed to the emergence of fledgling “remade” clothing businesses.
Zhang Na has a fashion label, Reclothing Bank, that sells clothes, bags and other accessories made from materials such as plastic bottles, fishing nets and flour sacks. Still, she conceded that buying sustainable clothing is a hard sell. “People of my age are more addicted to fast fashion, or they do not think about the sustainability of clothes,” she said.
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