Thanks to fast fashion, the amount of clothes produced and thrown away has increased sharply. Find out more about its environmental impact and EU solutions.
Fast fashion - constantly providing new styles at very low prices. To tackle the environmental impact, the EU wants to reduce textile waste and increase the life cycle and recycling of textiles. This is part of a plan to achieve a circular economy by 2050.
Excessive consumption of natural resources
The production of textiles uses a lot of water as well as land to grow cotton and other fibres. It is estimated that the global textile and clothing industry used 79 billion cubic metres of water in 2015 - while the water demand of the entire EU economy was 266 billion cubic metres in 2017.
According to estimates, it takes 2,700 litres of fresh water to produce one cotton T-shirt - equivalent to one person's drinking water needs for 2.5 years.
The textile sector was the third largest source of water and land use degradation in 2020. In that year, an average of nine cubic metres of water, 400 square metres of land and 391 kilograms (kg) of raw materials were needed to provide clothes and shoes for each EU citizen.
Water pollution
Textile production is estimated to cause around 20% of global water pollution due to dyeing and finishing of products. The washing of synthetic garments releases 35% of primary microplastics into the environment. A single wash of polyester garments can release 700 000 microplastic fibres, which can end up in the food chain.
Most microplastics from fabrics are released within the first few washes. Fast fashion is based on mass production, low prices and high sales volumes, which encourages many first washes.
It is estimated that washing synthetic textiles releases 14 million tonnes of microplastics into the ocean, which are deposited on the ocean floor. In addition to this global problem, the pollution caused by clothing production has a devastating impact on the health of local communities, animals and ecosystems in the areas where the factories are located.
Greenhouse gas emissions
It is estimated that the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions - more than international flights and shipping combined.
According to the European Environment Agency, the purchase of textiles in the EU in 2020 generated around 270 kg of CO2 emissions per person. This means that EU textile consumption generated 121 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Europe is in the midst of an unprecedented health and economic crisis that has exposed the fragility of our global supply chains. [...] Fostering new innovative business models will in turn create the new economic growth and job opportunities Europe needs to rebuild itself. - Jan Huitema (Netherlands, Renew Europe)
Textile waste ends up in landfills and recycling rates are low
The way people dispose of unwanted clothes has also changed: instead of donating them, they throw them away.
Less than half of used clothes are collected for reuse or recycling and only 1% are recycled into new clothes, as technologies that would allow clothes to be recycled into virgin fibres are only now beginning to emerge.
Between 2020 and 2015, clothing production doubled, while the average time of use of clothing decreased.
Each European consumes almost 26 kg and throws away around 11 kg of textiles per year. Used clothing can be exported outside the EU, but most of it (87%) is incinerated or landfilled.
The rise of fast fashion has been critical to the increase in consumption, driven in part by social media and an industry that is bringing fashion trends to more consumers at a faster pace than in the past.
New strategies to address this problem include developing new business models for renting clothes, designing products in a way that facilitates reuse and recycling (circular or circular fashion), persuading consumers to buy less quality clothing (slow fashion), and generally steering consumer behaviour towards more sustainable options.
Where we are: an EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles
As part of the Circular Economy Action Plan, the European Commission presented a new strategy in March 2022 to make textiles more durable, repairable, reusable and recyclable, to tackle fast fashion and to stimulate innovation in the sector.
The new strategy includes new eco-design requirements for textiles, clearer information, the introduction of a digital product passport and requires companies to take responsibility and action to minimise their carbon and environmental burden.
The EU must legally oblige manufacturers and large fashion companies to work more sustainably. People and the planet are more important than textile industry profits. - Delara Burkhardt (Germany, S&D) Rapporteur for the report on sustainable textiles
On 1 June, MEPs tabled proposals for tougher EU measures to stop the overproduction and overconsumption of textiles. The Parliament's report calls for the production of textiles to respect human, social and labour rights, as well as the environment and animal welfare.
Existing EU measures for textile waste
According to the Waste Directive, which was approved by the European Parliament in 2018, EU countries are obliged to apply separate collection of textiles by 2025. The Commission's new strategy also includes measures to address the presence of hazardous chemicals, requires manufacturers to take responsibility for their products throughout their entire lifecycle, including when a product becomes waste, and to help consumers choose sustainable textiles.
The EU has an EU Ecolabel, which can be applied to products by producers who comply with environmental criteria, guaranteeing limited use of harmful substances and reduced water and air pollution.
The EU has also introduced some measures to mitigate the environmental impact of textile waste. The Horizon 2020 programme is funding the RESYNTEX project, which uses chemical recycling and could be a business model for a circular economy for the textile industry.
Source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/sk/headlines/society/20201208STO93327/vplyv-textilnej-vyroby-a-textilneho-odpadu-na-zivotne-prostredie-infografika
This project is supported by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme in the school education sector. The contents of this document reflect the views of the author, and the European Commission and the Slovak Academic Association for International Cooperation are not responsible for these views.
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