New Zealand landfills are becoming full of unloved clothes as 'fast fashion' grows

Friday, 19 July 2019

Unloved clothing is being dumped in landfills - there's just too much of it.

Fashionable clothing has many ugly sides - the clothing filling our landfills is one of the fastest growing causes of waste in New Zealand.

With clothes cheaper than ever before it's normal for a person to buy dozens of new pieces a year, but the resources needed to churn out new clothing is harming the planet and the people behind the sewing machines.

Textiles sent to Wellington's Southern Landfill doubled since 2009 and it's estimated that 25 per cent of it were perfectly fine clothes - that could have been recycled, reused or diverted.

Labourers work at a garment factory in Bac Giang province, near Hanoi. Workers' rights are often compromised in the production of fast fashion.

The Formary creative director Bernadette Casey said there was 'a disconnect' between people and their clothing, especially when it comes to the resources, labour and amount of skill to make it.

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'Fashion has a really hideous side.'

Casey set up The Formary, based in Wellington, which works to redesign fibre waste from businesses and organisations to save it from the landfill.

'Every kilo of clothing that's landfilled creates 3.6 kilos of greenhouse gases,' Casey said.

'There's just this complete lack of awareness of what happens to the clothing that we put in a clothing bin.'

The Formary creative director Bernadette Casey says there needs to be regulations on the resources used in the fashion industry.

The fashion industry creates about ten per cent of the global CO2 emissions - more than aviation and shipping combined, according to the United Nations.

Charity bins and opshops seemed like a good place for unwanted clothes, but they were inundated and sending much of it to the landfill anyway, Casey said.

Chamanthie Sinhalage-Fonseka has bought second hand clothing since 2012, firstly out of cost necessity, but now for the environment.

'We're just moving our waste around.'

WRAP UK have calculated that extending the life of clothes by just nine extra months of active use would reduce their carbon, water and waste footprints by around 20-30 per cent each.

At Auckland's four landfills, textile waste accounted for four per cent of the waste in 2010, and in 2040, that's expected to increase to six per cent.

'Buy the best quality that you can, because if you invest in a piece of clothing you're more likely to look after it.'

The fabric also mattered, she said. A single clothes wash can release about 700,000 plastic particles from the synthetic fibres, with polyester the worst offender.

Fossil fuels are also used to create fabrics like polyester, and a polyester shirt has more than double the carbon footprint of a cotton shirt.

GUILT-FREE SHOPPING

Wellington resident Chamanthie Sinhalage-Fonseka has been shopping almost exclusively at opshops since 2012.

At first, she started buying secondhand to save her bank balance.

'I was just out of law school, I'd just started my first job, I was working for a very public personality and my job required very nice clothes.

Shoppers look through the display racks of clothes on the opening day of New Zealand's first TopShop and TopMan store on Queen Street, 2015 in Auckland.

'I was earning $35,000 a year at the time and I was paying $300 a week for rent. It was a lot and it didn't really leave enough for a wardrobe.'

So she hit the opshops, became hooked, and now about 95 per cent of her wardrobe is second hand - but she estimates it's worth somewhere between $50,000 and $70,000.

Her favourite pieces include an Alexander McQueen jacket she bought for $90 which would have cost $3000 new.

She also bought a barely-used Taylor Boutique jacket for $80, which would've cost $900 in a store.

She now scours the secondhand stores as a habit, not out of necessity.

'Along with the fun of it, and knowing that you're getting quite good quality clothing, it's guilt-free because you're diverting from the landfill, and it's not fast fashion.'

H&M have a goal to only use 'recycled or sustainably sourced' materials by 2030.

Sinhalage-Fonseka said as people were becoming more environmentally aware people were changing, with even Meghan Markle backing clothing re-use and consignment.

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

An Auckland Council Waste Assessment from 2017 says textiles are one of the fastest growing materials being dumped in Auckland.

Textiles have a large global environmental footprint second only to the extractive oil and gas industries, the report says.

Chamanthie with a $3000 Alexander McQueen jacket she bought for $90.

'Globally, 'fast fashion' and the rise of cheaper, poorer quality clothing are having an impact.'

A 2018 audit for waste in Christchurch says the amount of fashion and textile waste was 6397 tonnes for that year.

But the Ministry for the Environment admitted they don't measure the amount of national waste.

Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage said there were 'major gaps' in the country's data about waste, including textile waste.

Fast fashion was contributing to the problem of increasing textile waste in New Zealand, but there was no immediate plan to regulate textiles, she said.

'I would like to see the fashion and clothing industries work to avoid waste at all levels before considering whether regulation is necessary.'

Buying pre-loved, quality pieces is one way to reduce our fast fashion consumption.

New Zealanders cared about reducing waste, she said.

'Op shopping, buying vintage and pre-loved clothing are all choices we can make.'

Casey said walking around the shopping district in London, 'massive, massive stores' and retailers were taking over the historic buildings which used to be banks and transforming the entire cityscape.

The fashion industry many ethical issues have prompted some to ditch fast fashion entirely.

As part of the global issue New Zealand is not innocent.

BURNING ISSUES

Fashion giants Zara and H&M arrived in New Zealand in 2016, and as H&M have already expanded to seven stores, consumption is not going to be slowing down.

News headlines accusing H&M of burning unsold inventory hasn't helped fast fashion's image, but the company said it 'rarely' burns clothes.

H&M also have a goal to use just 'recycled or sustainably sourced' materials by 2030.

The array of issues around the fashion industry has prompted some to ditch fast fashion entirely to choose second hand only, and they're not alone.

A survey by fashion reseller thredUP found that a quarter of American millennials and Gen Zers planned to ditch fast fashion in 2019 for ethical reasons.

The global cries for sustainability have also sparked new clothing brands with ethics at their core.

New Zealand label Kowtow is one of them, using just sustainable fibres and fair trade manufacturing.

One of New Zealand's largest fast fashion sellers The Warehouse Group says they're taking ethical sourcing very seriously.

A Walk Free Foundation report from last year found the fashion industry is the second-largest sector after technology to support modern slavery.

In 2004, the Warehouse created The Warehouse Ethical Sourcing Programme to protect the welfare of workers in their supply chain.

As one of the country's lowest-price clothing retailers, The Warehouse group sourcing support chief executive Tania Benyon said their programme is one of the most far-reaching ethical sourcing programmes in the New Zealand retail sector.

'We recognise that there is more to Ethical Sourcing than our own programme. We're collaborating with others and making financial contributions to joint efforts to drive social and environmental progress in developing country supply chains.'

Some countries have started to turn away our unwanted clothes, and last year Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda banned second hand clothing imported from the US and the UK to support their own textile industries.

For her masters research Casey pursued ethical purchasing, but she soon came to realise that it made little difference - there needs to be policies in place.

'Thinking that we can consume our way out of it is wrong. The only way we can protect the environment and workers is through regulation and policy.'

The fashion industry was totally unregulated, and Casey said she wanted measurements on the resources that the companies were using.

New Zealand could look to what other countries were doing, she said.

The French Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy for textiles came into effect in January 2007 and means all legal entities putting new textiles and clothing onto the French market are required to establish their own collection and recycling programmes.

Sweden has lowered the cost of clothing repairs to elongate the life of clothing and other products.

Transparency is becoming a market expectation, Casey said.

WAYS TO SHOP ETHICALLY

- Avoid the purchase of new clothes and buy pre-loved pieces instead

- Buy less over the course of the year

- Buy good quality garments which will last longer

- Find ethical retailers online - a better shop could be just around the corner

- Buy New Zealand-made

- Don't throw unwanted clothes away, ask if friends or family want them first

- If you must donate, make sure your donation is actually needed

- Learn how to fix small clothing problems or visit a tailor to save your clothes