How can we prevent clothing waste?

Topics Environment
#1

I had to do a double take on this tweet from UNYouth:

Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck full of textiles is thrown away.

Be a #ClimateAction Superhero - mend, donate and keep clothing out of landfills! https://t.co/9Bhjuvm2HK #ActNow pic.twitter.com/QVbbBxJ8EE

— UNYouth (@UN4Youth) July 21, 2021

Do you ever wonder what happens to all the clothing manufactured that are not sold? What solutions can youth come up with to reduce this waste? What actions can we take in our personal lives to reduce consumerism?

#2

I wasn’t as aware of this problem. Looks like the pandemic has also increased unsold clothing inventories. Reading up a bit on this topic - looks like France and the US are making it harder for companies to burn their unsold clothing since 2018 - Fashion retailers are changing how they deal with unsold clothes | Fortune. Hopefully they will use technology to make better predictions of how much inventory to manufacture for a given season.

#3

Unlike food that has a shelf life clothing doesn’t. This is an opportunity to take all the old clothing, that people would like to donate, along with new/unsold inventory and make it available to needy and unfortunate folks around the globe. Wouldn’t it be possible for organizations like Red Cross and others to facilitate such an initiative. How many times have we not watched little children and adults on TV, in developing and under developed countries, with barely any clothing on them.