Unsold clothing is prepared to be sent overseas at a Goodwill Outlet Center in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 2022. Textile waste in the U.S. has grown 50% in the past two decades.
Photo by Spencer Platt, courtesy Getty Images
“The waste itself is still growing, and this issue remains a very serious concern. We need to give more attention to it, or find an innovative way to solve this problem.”
— Sheng Lu
From deforestation to air and water pollution, Mother Earth humbly wears the scars of human-made environmental harms. But another wound — less talked about but increasingly damaging — is blanketing the planet.
Discarded clothing and products such as carpets, footwear and towels are piling up in landfills around the globe, causing a variety of harm to human health and the environment, especially air, water and soil ecosystems.
Cheap and durable synthetic fibers derived from petroleum, such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, can take up to 200 years to decompose, research shows. While U.S. consumers and businesses may have options to donate, repurpose and repair used textiles, the majority of them are discarded into municipal waste streams, highlighting the inefficiency of current recycling systems.
Far from just an eyesore, decomposing textiles emit harmful greenhouse gases such as methane and leach toxic chemicals into groundwater and soil. The toxic waste includes microplastics, heavy metals and an array of chemicals commonly used to increase the stain and water resistance of products such as pants, carpets and coats.
Often called “forever” chemicals, the substances do not break down in the human body or in nature. Research links them to a range of health problems, including various autoimmune diseases, cancers, reproductive issues and thyroid disease.
Around the world, more than 90 million tons of textile waste piles up in landfills every year, taking up at least 7% of the total amount of global landfill space. Studies single out China and the U.S. as the biggest contributors.
A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found textile waste has increased 50% over the past two decades in the U.S. The crisis is fueled in large part by the shift to “fast fashion,” a business model used by companies that mass-produce low-quality synthetic clothing and offer it, mainly to internet shoppers, at very low prices.
“Under this model, trends change frequently, consumers buy textiles many times per year, and the textiles are disposed of after wearing them for just a short period of time,” Alfredo Gomez, MPP, the report’s author and GAO’s director of natural resources and environment, told The Nation’s Health.
The GAO report said federal efforts to address textile waste and recycling are conducted individually by U.S. agencies rather than collaboratively, if at all, and are given low priority. The report also called out the absence of a centralized system for collecting and sorting textiles. It recommended transitioning toward a “circular” economy, which aims to extend the life of products and materials for as long as possible through reuse, repair, remanufacturing and at the end of their lives, through recycling.
A worker gathers donations at a textile and clothing drop-off in Queens, New York, in June. More than 90 million tons of textile waste piles up in landfills around the globe every year.
Photo by Lindsey Nicholson, courtesy UDG/Getty Images
“A circular economy means increasing opportunities for the redesign of textiles so that less waste is created,” Amanda Forster, PhD, a materials research engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, told The Nation’s Health.
For example, some garments might be designed to last longer or be easier to repair, reuse, resell or donate to thrift shops, she said.
“Recycling should be the last option for textiles at end of life,” Forster said. “When recycling is the best path, then efforts to return textiles back to textiles, such as fiber-to-fiber recycling, should be prioritized.”
According to recent data from McKinsey and Co., fast-fashion retailers such as China’s Shein and Temu are now primary online stores for U.S. shoppers, with 40% of consumers reporting they had recently made a purchase from one or both companies. Numerous studies show people often view their garments as disposable and wear them only about 10 times before discarding them.
But such practices bring less pain to consumers than to the low-paid workers behind the sewing machines at factories overseas who toil long hours to manufacture the products, often in countries with few workforce safety protections.
“This is a science issue, but it’s also a human issue, as evidenced by the marginalized workers who are exploited,” Paula Carbone, PhD, an off-site professor of clinical education for the University of Southern California, told The Nation’s Health.
As an educator who has taught undergraduate courses on sustainability, Carbone emphasizes the need to educate students about the human side, not just the science side, of textile waste.
“We need to get teachers and states to put this into their standards beyond science,” Carbone said, recommending that sustainability education be extended beyond elementary school science curricula and into social studies and other subjects.
Some schools and colleges of fashion design are doing just that, according to Sheng Lu, PhD, a professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware.
“We are incorporating this topic more closely into our courses and raising our students’ awareness of this issue,” Sheng told The Nation’s Health.
Nevertheless, there is currently “no perfect solution” to the problem, said Sheng, noting that textile recycling technologies are limited.
“The waste itself is still growing, and this issue remains a very serious concern,” Sheng said. “We need to give more attention to it, or find an innovative way to solve this problem.”
In the absence of a federal focus, states are coming up with innovative solutions to address textile waste. In 2022, Massachusetts added textiles to the state’s list of materials banned from disposal and awarded grants to organizations that implement textile recovery programs. The ban applies to clothing, footwear, bedding, towels, curtains, fabric and similar products, but excludes textiles that are contaminated with mold, body fluids, insects, oil or hazardous substances.
“Almost all textiles have value,” John Fischer, deputy division director for solid waste at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, told The Nation’s Health. “Sometimes textiles that people don’t think have value actually do have value because there’s a hierarchy of uses.”
John Telford loads unwanted textiles at a polyester recycling plant in Kettering, England, in February. Synthetic fibers such as polyester can take up to 200 years to decompose in landfills.
Photo by Leon Neal, courtesy Getty Images
Nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies use collection systems, such as bins located around the state, to gather used textiles, said Fischer, adding that enforcement is with businesses, institutions or government agencies, rather than Massachusetts residents.
“Our focus with residents is just making sure that we do effective education and outreach so that people are aware of the ban and also aware of where they can bring their textiles that they no longer want,” Fischer said.
Innovative solutions are also emerging in Brooklyn, New York, where a nonprofit called Fabscrap has pioneered a system to recycle and reuse fabric scraps. The organization partners with more than 850 brands, including Oscar de la Renta, J. Crew and Marc Jacobs, diverting their textile waste from landfills and into the hands of people who use the scraps for creative purposes. The scraps, often remnants from the production of high-end fashion and other commercial textiles, are meticulously sorted with the help of volunteers.
Companies that contribute their textiles pay a fee for their materials to be sorted and redistributed to sewing students, hobbyists, quilters and crafters. Smaller scraps are shredded and can be used for insulation, carpet padding and mattress stuffing.
“Nine years in, we have saved 2 million pounds of fabric from landfill, which is quite a lot of fabric,” Camille Tagle, Fabscrap’s co-founder and creative director, told The Nation’s Health.
Prior to co-founding Fabscrap, Tagle — a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology — enjoyed a successful decade-long career designing luxury evening wear. Despite achieving national recognition for her designs, Tagle began thinking about her own role in contributing to textile waste, which led to a career shift toward sustainability and waste management, she said.
Across the Atlantic, Europe is also starting to step up. For example, the European Union is working to implement regulations that make producers — rather than consumers or governments — responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products, from production to waste management. France has emerged as a leader in the work, but Hungary, Latvia and the Netherlands have such programs in force as well.
Carbone said she applauds the efforts, noting that ultimately, the responsibility for meaningful environmental change lies with businesses and the governments that regulate them. Consumers are not the ones extracting resources or hindering alternative energy development, she said.
“If people believe the burden is solely on them, they become overwhelmed, anxious and hopeless,” she said. “The focus must remain on where real change needs to happen — within businesses and through systemic reform.”
But consumers can still take action, starting with their own wardrobes, Carbone said. That can mean buying less, discarding clothing responsibly and wearing outfits long after a trend has passed.
“When you see a friend wearing an outfit you’ve already seen, compliment them,” she said.
For more information, visit www.gao.gov and https://fabscrap.org.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association