A debate is on making biodegradable clothing that does not have to be recycled. They contend that organic cotton is a plant like our food is and it should be composted and returned to instead of recycling them.
The fashion industry accounts for up to eight percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. That’s more than global shipping and air travel combined. Most of those clothes — about 84 percent — end up in landfills or incinerators.
Composting refers to the process of recycling organic matter — in most households, that means food scraps and yard waste, like leaves — into fertilizer. Because composting is an aerobic process, it does not produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas that organic materials emit when they decompose in oxygen-starved landfills.
However, it’s not enough for the fabric to simply be made from natural fibers, such as cotton, silk, and wool, to compost it. Many brands treat their clothing with so-called forever chemicals to make them waterproof or stain- or wrinkle-resistant.
There are a lot of brands out there which are compostable, but that just means they’re using cotton or linen, or hemp. Their dyes, the seams of every piece aren’t compostable. To make the product fully compostable, manufacturers have to use cotton sewing thread. When they insist on using polyester, it is not compostable.
A study on textile disposal systems in Europe revealed that for composting to make a meaningful difference, it would need to be at a large scale, like at the government level — not at a brand level. Unless a brand guarantees to collect all its garments it’s wishful thinking.
Composting is one of those big problems that, at least right now, must be solved by fashion brands and waste stream systems, and not just left to individual consumers because most individual consumers don’t have their personal compost bin pile.
Adopting universal compost standards for textile waste could be one way to help consumers safely dispose of old clothes. It is now known that cotton can be recycled. Of course, the amount of clothing being recycled, composted, or, more often, sent to the landfill points to the bigger problem: there’s simply too much of it being produced.
A 2016 World Economic Forum report estimated 150bn new garments are created each year. The number of clothing items produced each year doubled between 2000 and 2014, according to the consulting firm McKinsey. And it’s not just harmful to the environment: all that clothing production requires cheap, mostly unregulated labor. It’s estimated that 98 percent of fast fashion factory workers don’t make a living wage.
A cotton t-shirt from Sustain costs around $48 (£38), or about twice as much as a similar shirt from Gap. Experts say government policies could even the playing field between fast-fashion brands and companies like hers. One way would be to impose higher taxes on high-polluting fast fashion companies or incentives for companies to manufacture domestically.
If a piece of polyester clothing incorporated the cost of what it takes to recycle or clean up the end-life of that clothing, it would inevitably cost more.
When consumers pay $56 (£44) for a t-shirt from Stripe & Stare, they’re paying for carbon offsets, high labor standards, and state-of-the-art, biodegradable materials. Consumers might not like paying more, clean production means buying less and buying it better.
Fast fashion is an eco catastrophe
