I will never forget the sight of Sri Lanka’s once-pristine beaches littered with tangled coils of branded waste. This heartbreaking experience marked the beginning of my journey with Debrand 15 years ago. Since then, I have worked closely with some of the world’s largest fashion brands to help them in adopting and implementing more sustainable strategies for responsibly eliminating textile waste.

The scale of the global environmental crisis caused by business models like fast fashion – the term used to describe clothing designs that move quickly from the catwalk to stores to capture current trends – is staggering. Every week, millions of garments originating from North America, Europe, and other continents inundate the Global South,1 only to be deemed unusable and ultimately discarded into landfill sites. This is just one example of the amount of clothing waste generated by the fashion industry, which is in dire need of sustainable overhaul.

According to a McKinsey study2, for every five new garments produced each year, three garments are disposed of. In addition, AEG reported that 90 per cent of our clothing is thrown away before it needs to be.3 This trend is accelerated by the fashion industry generating billions of dollars in unsold inventory and discarded stock each year. Fast fashion has become increasingly popular due to its low cost and the ability for consumers to purchase the latest trends at a fraction of the price. However, this comes at a great cost to our planet.

The fabrics used in fast fashion are often of lower quality and are not designed to last, leading to increased waste and pollution. The US Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average American now throws away 81 pounds of clothing each year.4 The unsustainable processes used to make these mass-produced items leads to significant impact on the environment. Additionally, fast fashion often employs unethical labour practices, including low wages, dangerous working conditions, and lack of worker’s rights. These challenges are compounded by the fact that fast fashion is often produced in developing countries with weak environmental regulations.

Slow Fashion: A Call for Mindful Consumption, Production, and Reverse Logistic

Everyone involved, from consumers to producers and leaders within the fashion industry, can take action to move towards slow fashion. Slow fashion focuses on mindful consumption with an emphasis on applying circular business practices. This would mean shifting away from the current linear model of take-make-waste to one that focuses on creating opportunities for reusing, recycling, and reducing dependency of finite resources. In addition, we can encourage both the industry and consumers to prioritise sustainable manufacturing techniques, materials, and cradle-to-cradle design.

To move towards a circular economy, it is critical to implement streamlined reverse logistics processes that enable identification and sortation of returned products and textiles in an efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable way. This remains a significant challenge due to the complex combination of materials used in clothing, including natural and man-made fibres, plastics, and metals. To overcome this obstacle, automation and digitisation of the identification and sorting processes is necessary to facilitate scalability for the industry. Such an approach can aid in reducing the negative impact of the fashion industry on our planet and contribute to a more sustainable future.

Finally, there is the challenge of balancing durability and recyclability. While durable clothing leads to extended product lifespan, products that are easy to disassemble for recycling and provided as feedstock typically have a shorter lifespan. Achieving both requires innovative solutions and a shift in mindset across stakeholders, including brands, manufacturers, designers, government, recyclers, third-party partners, and consumers. A key opportunity is providing education for consumers to change their purchasing behaviours and perceptions of fashion as disposable. We can all contribute by making more conscious decisions about our clothing, extending the lifespan of clothing through repairs, and finding ways to give clothing a second or third life.

It is within our power to create a brighter future for all by making intentional decisions about our fashion choices. We can transition to a circular fashion system that prioritises recycling and commerce to help eliminate textile waste ending up in landfills around the world.

Ultimately, the transition towards slow fashion is not just good for the planet, but also for the people who live on it. It is time to embrace a new mindset towards fashion, which emphasises sustainability, ethical practices, and circularity. By doing so, we can protect our planet and its inhabitants for future generations.