The Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion: Textile Waste and Recycling Promises

From the European Union alone, 1.4 million tons of used textiles were exported to other countries last year. This volume has doubled in the last twenty years, and this trend is of course closely related to the rise of “fast fashion”. More and more clothing is produced, although according to various estimates, about a third of it is never sold.

In addition, promises that textiles sent for recycling will be recycled or reused are not always fulfilled. The Swedish newspaper “Aftonbladet” conducted an experiment this summer, placing ten undamaged and clean items of clothing equipped with “AirTag” tracking devices in designated boxes at H&M stores. The findings were not encouraging. The three garments ended up in Africa and India, places where textile waste is a serious problem. Two more end up in Romania, a total of 3,730 kilometres, while two more are recycled into fibres, contrary to H&M’s promise to do so only with clothes in such a bad condition that they could no longer be worn.

After examining customs data, Aftonbladet also found that three sorting centers in Germany, whose services are used by H&M, sent at least one million items of clothing to Ghana in the first half of this year alone.

What does it look like in the “last stop” of the mountains of unnecessary clothes in Western countries? Foreign journalists have documented it in photo reports and documentaries.

2023-09-03 21:00:00
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