The rise in fast fashion has led to an unsustainable turnover of clothing in our wardrobes and according to WRAP, in the UK alone, approximately 1 million tonnes of household textiles are thrown away annually.

Textiles have an environmentally significant impact across their lifecycle. They have a substantial carbon footprint during production and use and are expensive to dispose of. In a study done by the Charity Retail Association, the reuse of clothing saves an estimated 29 kg CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per kilo of clothing compared to recycling, and 33 kg CO2e compared to disposal.

In just two decades, clothing production has almost doubled, driven by an increase in the number of garments purchased each year by an average consumer, which is in turn mainly driven by the fast fashion phenomenon, with its low prices and increased number of clothing collections offered per year to consumers. 

The fundamentals of Fast Fashion are built on Take – Make – Waste.

The continuous changes in fashion often mean that a piece of clothing, after being used for one season, is simply thrown away. This has led consumers to buy clothes as if they were candies, to buy more clothes than they need, and to treat more and more low-priced garments almost as “disposable” goods that can be thrown away after just seven or eight wears.

This sort of “democratic” vision of fashion has allowed paying lower and lower prices thanks to increasingly lower costs, to render the guarantee of good quality and an equitable production process unaffordable.

Undeniably, the fashion industry has a global impact on the economy and the environment.

Indeed, garment value chains are major contributors to the economy in many countries all over the world, especially given that in the last decades, a large part of the production has been transferred from Europe and North America to emerging and developing countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Turkey, and Vietnam.

On the other hand, this phenomenon—largely determined by the search for cheap labor and the approaching the areas of raw materials supply—has exacerbated the global environmental impact of the fashion industry, which some belief is the second most polluting sector immediately after the oil industry. However, it is not easy to estimate the environmental impacts of the sector given their variety and the fact that they occur all around the world.

The global production of textile fibers, the consumption of textiles, and the amount of textile waste are generating problems at ever-higher levels. A way to reverse this situation is the reinsertion of clothing items already used in the production chain. Thus, in light of the circular economy, Several EU countries are developing more effective systems for collecting textiles for reuse and recycling. Solutions to increased transparency in Europe include improved traceability of material flows throughout the life cycle of clothing. 

And thus the clamor of Circular Economy gained momentum.

But what is Circular Economy?

There are a huge number of definitions of Circular Economy. But in a nutshell, the circular economy model proposes the prolonged use of what is taken from nature, to reduce future access to primary resources and reduce waste production.

It is increasingly evident that the current linear economy model (take-make-dispose) has substantial limits and does not appear to be able to attain the sustainable development goals that now dominate the agenda of policymakers at a global level. Increasing attention is therefore placed on the development of policies that allow a transition to a circular economy model.

A Circular Economy (CE) is regenerative by nature, based on principles of closed loops. A Circular Economy (CE) is not a new concept. It originates from Walter Stahel’s report “The Potential for substituting manpower for Energy” from 1976, presented to the European Commission. It presented the idea of an ‘economy in loops’, with the positive impact to increase jobs: “economic competitiveness, reduced dependence on natural resources and the prevention of waste”. And this gave rise to the Shoddy Industry.

There was another concept ‘Cradle to Cradle’ developed by McDonough and Braungart, which is a well-known principle for closing the loop in two different cycles: biological or technological. According to this principle, a product is designed to have multiple life cycles or to be biodegradable. Accordingly, after the use phase, the product will continue in the technical or biological cycle. A biological cycle means composting, which, however, is not a realistic option for textiles while only a few fibers can be composted, and textiles include harmful chemicals which should not be released into the soil. Moreover, composting produces methane, which contributes to greater greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and even the nutrient value from textiles to soil is low. Furthermore, textiles, even bio-based, compost too slowly to be suitable in the municipal composting system and therefore should be composted in home-composting units. 

In the fashion sector, therefore, closing the loop is more likely to happen in a technical cycle (using textile waste to produce new fibers and yarns). Nonetheless, some of the latest experiments reveal the potential for using the biological cycle as one solution in the textile sector. For example, some Cradle-to-Cradle Certified garments have been developed to be compostable. 

On the other hand, a more interesting option is to combine these two cycles and use biological processes to some extent to process textile waste to be suitable for the next round of manufacturing within the technical cycle (producing new yarns). While separating fibers in blended materials, biological composting can help, for example, to destroy bio-based materials from blends, and in this way, polyester can be separated and used again in the recycling process. We are seeing this process being developed and used by some players in the industry.

A circular economy approach in fashion aims to develop a more sustainable and closed-loop system where the goal is to extend the use time of garments and maintain the value of the products and materials as long as possible. This means that all materials will be recycled in several rounds. Products are designed to be included in a system where all aspects support circularity. The original design needs to take into account several lifecycles. Materials need to flow within the system and waste needs to be collected and appreciated as a valuable material for recycling and material recovery. All products need to be collected back after their useful time is over. 

Accordingly, moving towards a circular economy means taking a system perspective on fashion, where all actors are included: designers, producers, manufacturers, suppliers, business people, and even consumers. 

Transparency and traceability throughout the supply chain, therefore, appear essential in the process of evolution towards more sustainable production and the transition to a circular economy in the fashion sector.

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