The way we produce, use, and reprocess clothing today is inherently wasteful, and current rising …

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new report “A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future´ confirms members’ views that the steady production growth in fast fashion is intrinsically linked to a decline in utilisation per item, leading to an incredible amount of waste.

It is estimated that more than half of fast fashion production is disposed of in under a year, and one garbage truck full of textiles is landfilled or burnt every second.

Note from NACRO: Donations of goods to charitable recyclers are made up of clothing, textiles and homewares. The later can include the myriad of items found in our homes including kitchenware, furniture and indeed stuff from garages and sheds. Charitable recyclers benefit from 68% of these donations.

Waste sent to landfill tends to not to be clothing or textiles – but inappropriate donations which are mainly homewares, including broken and soiled indoor and outdoor furniture, toys, bicycles, white goods and unusables such as gas bottles, bbq’s and text books. Mattresses continue to be a burden for charities across the country. Rest assured charities use more than 96% of donated clothing.