Textiles such as clothing and shoes are the most environmentally damaging type of household waste. Clothes, footwear, and household textiles are responsible for water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, releasing dangerous chemicals, gases, and microplastic fibres into the environment and can take hundreds of years to decompose. For example:

• Textile dyeing has become the second largest contributor to water pollution, after agriculture.
• Microfibers from worn-out clothes also are a huge threat to living creatures around lakes and oceans.
• Cotton production for the textile industry accounts for up to a quarter of insecticide use worldwide.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of a much longer list of detrimental effects.

Recent studies found textiles were just 4% of what was binned in 2021, in terms of weight, but accounted for 32% of the carbon footprint generated by household waste.
At the current rate, more than 25% of global carbon emissions will come from creating textiles by 2050.

Nevertheless, both within the UK and globally, clothing waste has been steadily increasing over the last decades.
Annually, the world throws away an average of 92 million tonnes of textile waste, which is expected to increase to 134 million tonnes by 2030. A report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation said $500bn was being wasted each year because we are not reusing, recycling, or repurposing clothes well enough.

In the UK, clothing and textile waste has grown much faster than any other waste category over the past decades. 
As a first reason, we buy more clothes every year. For example, between 2000 and 2014 the number of garments bought per person increased by an average of sixty percent, and people are buying three times more clothes than they did in the 1980s! There are staggering two tonnes of clothing purchased every minute by UK shoppers, more than anywhere in Europe.
Secondly, we wear clothes less often and throw them away much more quickly. The average item of clothing is only worn 10 times before being discarded. After that, seven out of ten people are more likely to dispose of the items rather than reuse or resell them.

As a result, on average each person put eight items in the bin, meaning that every household wasted clothes with a purchase value of almost £500, research found. The problem is greatest in spring as people update their wardrobes for warmer weather. 
Another research shows that in the UK people usually throw away 680 million clothes when reorganising their closets during spring.
Thus, around 1.200.000 tonnes of textile waste in the UK ends up in landfill each year, 360.000 tonnes of which are clothes. All that makes the UK the fourth largest producer of textile waste in Europe.
And that's around £140 million worth of used but still wearable clothing going to landfill in the UK every year!!!

Another terrible forecast is that textile waste is expected to increase by 60% between 2015 and 2030. And by 2050 these unsustainable clothing disposal practices could be costing the UK £4.48 billion!

However, there are solutions to the textile waste problem. As clothing and textiles are not accepted via household recycling collections, clothes and textiles that are in good condition should be donated or sold for reuse. Selling or donating clothes that are still of re-saleable quality helps to extend the life of clothing as your unwanted clothes will find a new home and be loved all over again. At the same time, it keeps them out of landfill.
Extending the lifespan of clothing by even a few months can make a substantial difference in its environmental impact, reducing its harmful effects.
A culture of donating or selling unwanted clothes rather than disposing of them creates an excellent improvement in clothing waste levels.

Help us to increase our impact on people and the planet.

DONATE OR SELL INSTEAD OF DISCARDING.