Impact of fashion
Fashion is the third most polluting industry in the world, and one of the largest consumers of water. Making fabric uses water, energy, chemicals, and other resources that most people don’t think about, or ever see. At tutt, we think its important to talk about this and raise awareness.
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Fashion is the third most polluting industry in the world.
The average consumer purchases 60% more clothing than 15 years ago.
Around 10% of CO2 emissions today is caused by fashion.
50% of fast fashion pieces are disposed of within a year.
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1 garbage truck full of textiles is being trashed every second.
95% of clothing landfilled each year could be recycled.
73% of the worlds clothing eventually ends up in landfills or being incinerated.
Less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing.
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Fast fashion
In the last 15 years, clothing production and consumption has doubled and the average consumer purchases 60% more clothing. The average garment is only worn seven times before it gets thrown out, that means that a garbage truck full of textiles is being trashed every second (Ellen McArthur) and nearly three-fifths of all clothing ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year of being produced (McKinsey). Consumers buy more than they need.
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Climate change
Contrary to what some might say, we think climate change is real and fashion is not making it better. From growing textile fibres to moving fabrics around the world, making clothes sadly fuels this global climate crisis.
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Water pollution
Cotton requires an estimated 20.000 litres per kilogram of cotton fabric. An industry standard pair of jeans uses up to 8.000 litres of water to make (that’s close to 54 full bathtubs). After agriculture, textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of fresh water globally, even though the world is simultaneously facing freshwater scarcity. Over a billion people don’t have access to safe water.
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Plastic pollution
Synthetic clothes are made with plastic and when you wash synthetics they shed small plastic pieces called microfibres. Microfibres are too small to be filtered out by waste treatment plants, so they end up in our waterways and oceans by the billions. Once in the ocean, they act as pollution magnets that marine animals mistake for food, and which can eventually end up in our food.
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Cotton
We do not think conventional cotton is awesome. About â…” of all apparel contains cotton fibres, and we believe it has some of the most harmful environmental impacts of all fabric.
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Toxic chemicals
2,000 different chemicals, including formaldehyde, chlorine, lead, and mercury are used in textile processing. Of these, over 1,600 are used in dyeing processes, but only 16 are actually EPA-approved....
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After-life
These textiles take anywhere from 20 to 200 years to biodegrade.When they do, they release chemicals like formaldehyde, heavy metals, BPA, and PFCs into the environment. So basically you wear it twice and it lives in a landfill with its formaldehyde and BPA buddies for 200 years.
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