Fast fashion giants continue to grow and produce more and more each year. Our culture of overconsumption fuels the industry to overproduce cheap textiles, resulting in a lot of clothing waste. In fact, fashion waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the US. What’s worse, it’s estimated that 30% of the clothing produced each year is never sold or worn, and is likely headed to the nearest landfill or incinerator. This means that the resource-intensive process of textile production must be repeated over and over again, wasting precious natural resources and exacerbating climate change.
Thankfully, there are many people around the world who are coming up with sustainable solutions for the fashion industry’s issues and working hard to make change. Fashion designers are using creative ways to upcycle textiles, influencers are educating their followers about sustainable fashion, and students are doing advocacy work on their campuses. There is a broad community of people working toward a common goal: to make fashion more sustainable.