the Way?

The road less travelled

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Our clothing, justice & creation care

This page last updated September 28th, 2024
Clothes on hangers

Clothing is big business globally, worth about $US 1.7 trillion and creating about 170 billion items each year.

But the industry and our buying habits create problems for the world and some of our poorest fellow humans – large resource usage, environmental damage, plus human injustice and misery.

On this page you can get some up-to-date information on these problems and how you and I can make a positive difference.

There are many different sources of information on textile production, and some of the information is inconsistent and contradictory. I have tried to find unbiased sources and steer a middle line between green activists and garment industry apologists to sort fact from exaggeration.

A quick snapshot of some impacts of the fashion industry

  • Responsible for 20% of all wastewater globally, 35% of all oceanic primary microplastic pollution, 10% of global carbon emissions and 11% of all pesticides.
  • 21 billion tons of clothing goes to landfill each year.
  • A significant level of forced labour, child labour, low pay and unsafe working conditions.

These are all good reasons to re-think our approach to fashion!

The life cycle of clothing

There are five phases in the clothing life cycle:

  1. Agriculture (natural fibres only)
  2. Manufacture of fabrics
  3. Creation of garments
  4. Selling and wearing
  5. Disposal at end of life

About 30% of garments are made from natural materials (e.g. cotton, wool, linen, silk) and about 70 from synthetic materials (e.g. nylon, polyester, rayon). Each material can create different problems in some part of the garment life cycle.

Cotton (about 25%) and polyester (about 52%) are the most used materials in garments.

1. Agriculture

This phase is where the most water is required, and may also require chemical use in the natural environment.

Cotton

Cotton is the most commonly used natural fibre used in garments. To produce cotton fabric that can then be used in making garments requires a complex process – growing, harvesting, cleaning, creating yarn and creating fabrics or textiles. There are significant ethical and environmental issues related to this process.

Forced labour

In most of the top ten cotton growing countries (including India, USA, China and Brazil), forced labour and child labour are common. In Xinjiang province in China, which produces 20% of the world’s cotton, government sponsored forced labour from the Uygur and other communities is used, part of the Chinese government’s gross human rights abuses of a million Muslim Uygurs. However the cotton is exported in ways that obscure its origin. Forced and child labour in both China and India mean half of the world’s cotton is potentially produced unethically.

Water

Cotton growing requires large amounts of water. Many different figures are floated by the cotton industry and by its critics (see note 1), but it is clear that in some places cotton takes water from other uses that may be more necessary but make less of a profit. The Aral Sea in central Asia has almost dried up because the rivers that flow into it were diverted to irrigate cotton.

Chemicals

Cotton growing also tends to use large amounts of pesticides – 5%-10% of all pesticides and 10%-15% of all insecticides used globally (estimates vary). This pesticide use has several effects:

  • Pesticides pollute land, groundwater and river water. They can remain in the environment long enough to contaminate drinking water and harm fish, water birds, insects, etc, and other animals in the food chain.
  • Unsafe use of pesticides causes significant health problems for farmers, and killing an estimated 200,000 a year via acute poisoning. So cotton pesticides might be responsible for 10 to 20 thousand of these.

Cotton farming also uses large amounts of fertilisers, with much of the applied fertiliser entering the wider environment, with effects such as degrading soil and promoting toxic algal growth in rivers.

The fashion industry is considered to be the world’s second largest polluter (after the oil industry), mainly because of the way cotton is grown.

Ethical cotton

Concerned organisations are working to encourage cotton growers and textile manufacturers to adopt more sustainable and just practices, and inform consumers of who’s more ethical and who’s not. For example, a campaign by Be Slavery Free in Australia and New Zealand has helped eliminate forced labour in cotton growing in Uzbekistan. Many consumers and some garment makers are choosing to use organic cotton which is grown and processed without using synthetic chemicals. There is more information on choosing sustainable clothing at the end of this post.

Other materials

Grazing sheep for wool uses even more water than cotton (maybe 20 times or more) and may require clearing of native vegetation, so environmental costs are relatively high. However since wool makes up only a few percent of all garments, the overall impact isn’t as great as with cotton.

Silk fabric production requires larger amounts of fertiliser and higher energy use than other textiles, but is relatively benign in other ways (e.g. only 600 litres/kg water). In addition to cotton, forced and child labour have been found in the cultivation of silk.

2. Making fabrics

This generally requires that the natural or synthetic material is spun into yarn, then knitted or woven into fabric.

Most fibres, both natural and synthetic, will require similar processes to create fabrics: washing and bleaching, dyeing, and using chemicals such as preservatives and formaldehyde to make garments more durable. Most chemicals used are toxic, so waste water from processing can release toxic chemicals into the natural environment. Further contamination problems occur at the end of life (see below).

Water, chemical and energy usage, and carbon footprint, are generally of similar order of magnitude for processing all the different fabrics.

Exploitation of workers is prevalent in the textile indistries in India and China. Forced labour has been documented in China, and restrictive and abusive practices are still common in India.

Polyester

However polyester and other synthetic materials create additional problems because they are composed of some form of plastic. For example, polyester is produced from crude oil, which provides the raw materials to create PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic, from which polyester yarn is made.

Harmful microplastics can easily fall out of polyester fabrics when processed. Thus polyester is responsible for putting microplastics into the environment, in waste water from manufacturing, during usage, and on disposal at the end of the garment’s life (see below).

3. Making garments

The main issues relating to garment manufacture are human (modern slavery, forced labour, child labour and unjust working conditions) rather than environmental.

It is estimated that 50 million people are enslaved today, with another 28 million trapped in forced labour. (Forced labour is when people are forced to work by threats rather than by actual physical restraint.)

The garment and textile industries are labour intensive and many workers are considered to be victims of slavery, forced labour, low wages and unsafe working conditions. The total numbers are hard to estimate, but here are some apparent facts:

  • A building collapse in Bangladesh in 2013 killed 1,134 garment workers and injured about 2,500 more, highlighting the unsafe and unhealthy working conditions in many garment factories. Improvements have been made since then, but much still needs to be done.
  • In 2022, 64 people died in garment factories around the world and almost 600 were injured.
  • US$147.9 billion of goods imported annually by G20 nations are considered to be at risk of having modern slavery in the supply chain.
  • The major garment exporting countries are China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and India in Asia, and Germany and Italy in Europe. Coercive and unjust practices have been found in many countries:
    • Many workers in Myanmar and Uganda are forced to work long hours.
    • In Cambodia and Croatia, women make up the major part of the garment labour force and are paid less than men doing the same work.
    • Workers in Ethiopia were earning as little as 12c an hour and were mistreated as well.
    • Exploitive labour practcies have been found in China, Jordan, Türkiye and Malaysia.
    • Unsafe working conditions often include poor ventilation, excessive heat, working unprotected with toxic chemicals and breathing fibre dust.
  • Many fashion brands claim to pay workers in third world countries the minimum wage or more, but it seems the minimum wage in those countries is often only a percentage of a living wage.

The examples could go on (just search online and you’ll find so much information). There have been improvements in recent years, but much of our garments have been produced in ways that we wouldn’t tolerate if we knew.

Making an average T shirt

  • A cotton shirt requires almost 3,000 litres of water to grow and process the cotton (the amount a person drinks in 2.5 years), half a cup of fertiliser and pesticide, and almost 4 litres of oil.
  • A polyester shirt requires about 600 litres of water and 1.5 cups of crude oil.

According to Public Interest Network.

4. Selling & wearing

Studies show that about 40% of clothing purchased in some countries will never be worn. And 30% of clothing manufactured will never even be sold, but simply trashed.

There are of course environmental costs in transporting clothing from factory to shop, and in washing clothes. But these are mostly common to all clothing and not easily avoided, so I haven’t investigated these further.

However the wearing and washing of synthetic fibres such as polyester, can release dangerous microfibres into wastewater, into the environment and even into wearers.

5. End of life disposal

More clothes, less wear ….

In first world countries, clothing is far more than utilitarian. It has become a fashion item. As a result, far more clothing is purchased on average than a generation ago, and it isn’t worn for as long before it is disposed of. Australia and the US lead the world in the number of garments each person buys each year.

…. more waste

Only a small amount of all clothing is recycled into new garments – less than 1-2%. Most cheap garments are not able to be recycled because they tend to use shorter fibres that are lower quality and not as strong.

Sadly, giving clothes we no longer wear to second hand shops isn’t much of an answer. Often, more is donated than can be sold, so a lot of this ends up in rubbish bins anyway.

As a result, more clothing is going to waste than ever before. Some ends up in third world countries, and can be found dumped on beaches.

Cotton and woollen garments which go to landfill will biodegrade quickly (months to years), but synthetic garments persist for decades or even centuries. In addition, microfibres in polyester can end up polluting soil, groundwater and even surface waterways, and then into the food chain. As polyester breaks down, it releases methane, a greenhouse gas.

Fashion in Australia

Fast Fashion

Garment manufacturers can make larger profits if they can get us to buy more, then wear clothing for a shorter time before we purchase again. They achieve this by making cheap disposable clothing (though sometimes it is expensive, fashionable, but still disposable clothing). This is known as “fast fashion”, and we have seen it can cause major problems:

  • Exploitation of workers to create cheap garments that we will find easy to buy.
  • Use of materials and processes that have significant environmental impacts that the companies don’t need to be concerned about.
  • Creating a fashion scene where styles constantly change, so we move on to the new purchase of the new style as quickly as possible, thus creating waste products.
  • Little concern for creating garments that can be easily recycled.

Pretty much all sources I’ve used in writing this page agree – fast fashion is a blight on the world that we need to address. There is much we can do!

How do we make a difference?

Wear clothes longer – until they wear out

This is probably the most important thing we can do. Don’t get sucked into the merry-go-round of fashion cycles. Most clothes we buy could be worn far longer than they are. This will require several important steps:

  • Resist the impulse to buy. Do we really need this item? Will we wear it again and again (at least 30 times)?
  • Buy quality clothes that will last longer and will still look good, clothes that won’t go out of fashion quickly. Set our minds on our own style rather than slavishly following the “new” styles the fashion industry uses to get us to buy more.
  • Mend clothes if they tear or lose a button. Repair the soles of shoes.

Buy sustainable & ethical brands

We can find out what brands are more ethical and sustainable and support them. This may cost us more, but it will cost the world and poor workers in third world countries less, and they should last longer. There are many sources of information on ethical clothing – see the reference list below.

Choice of materials

It may be tempting to avoid a particular material – e.g. avoid cotton because of the pesticides, or avoid polyester because of the microfibres – or to choose only organic materials. But most materials have both advantages and disadvantages.

But, generally we can prefer natural materials that are sustainably produced, use non-toxic dyes and are made locally.

Buy secondhand, rent or borrow

Secondhand shops can be our friends. It is possible to rent clothing we’ll only use once. And sometimes borrowing clothes can be the cheapest of all – after all, what are friends for?

Re-use

Maybe try a clothes swap among friends – one person’s trash can be another person’s treasure. Otherwise donating to an Op Shop can allow somone else to enjoy what we have finished with – although we need to make sure it is something they really can sell, so it doesn’t end up going to landfill because of oversupply of second hand clothing.

Recycle worn out clothing

We can try to find places where our old clothing can be recycled. Again, there is a list in the references below. It may cost us to send the clothing away, but it will help our world.

Support government action

There are many things that governments can and probably should do to assist in reducing clothing waste.

  • Governments can legislate that companies check and report on their supply chains for possible exploitive labour practices, and to ban services and goods made with forced and child labour from entering their country.
  • Legislation is needed to make garment manufacturers to address the release of microfibres. This would require using better quality textiles, and making garments more easily recycled, thus taking more responsibility for whole of life management.
  • Governments should sponsor or legislate for a much higher percentage of garments to be recycled. This could be financed by a levy on fast fashion brands.

We can lobby our representatives to pass these types of legislation, and vote for those who are committed to more ethical practices in the fashion industry.

Get inspired

Read about how one woman decided to take a stand and made major changes to her clothes buying habits. And how several woman working in the fashion industry also made significant changes, and why they did it.

Note 1: Water usage in cotton growing.

Water is used at several stages in making cotton textiles – crop irrigation, washing & bleaching and dying. Some inconsistencies in the following figures may be due to inaccurate reporting of which phases are included in the estimate, plus older estimates may not account for recent efficiencies.

  • Some sources claim 10,000 litres (or even 20,000 litres) are required to produce one kilogram of cotton – these figures apparently include growing and processing and may be based on worst cases.
  • The cotton industry claims these are old and unreliable figures which don’t account for major reductions in water use in recent years, but tends to quote data from more efficient countries. For example, Australian cotton production, which is generally considered one of the most efficient in water use, was said to require only 2,400 litres per kg in 2019, but this doesn’t include processing to fabric.
  • This source (2023) uses a global average of about 8,000 litres/kg, which includes procesing to lint but not to fabric. 75% of this water use is rainwater and only 25% irrigation, which it seems to suggest isn’t so bad. (Does it matter where the water came from? I’m not sure.)
  • A more neutral global estimate is about 3,600 litres per kg on average, but this is only for growing the cotton crop and seems to be a little low.
  • This estimate (dated 2005) shows total crop and processing to vary from about 5,400 litres/gm in China and about 6,000 litres/gm in Australia and USA through to 21,500 litres/gm in India, the world’s largest cotton producer. The global average is said to be 9,360 litres/gm, with 89% on the crop. It can be assumed there have been some efficiencies since this study.
  • It is further claimed that cotton is grown on 3% of the world’s agricultural land and uses 3% of agricultural water, and that this usage is also 3% of an average individual’s water usage. Thus, is claimed, this shows that cotton water use isn’t excessive.
  • Some countries (e.g. Australia) have achieved significant water efficiencies over the past few decades but more needs to be done in many locations.

It is clear there is a wide range of (in)efficiencies globally and a wide range of estimates. I’d guess that total water use for growing and processing would be about 3,000 litres/gm in efficient countries but much higher elsewhere. The average could easily be several times this figure.

References

Ethical clothing information:
Clothing recycling
  • Upparel – textile recovery and recycling (Australia).
  • Wear Next. Where to Recycle Your Old Clothes Quickly and Easily in the UK.
  • Recycle. Clothiung and textiles (UK).
  • CNN Underscored. Recycling clothes is as easy as 1-2-3 with these 3 take-back programs (USA).
  • Sustainable Jungle. How & Where To Recycle Old Clothes: 17 Brands Recycling Your Textiles (Global).
  • Almost Zero Waste. 29 Free Clothing & Textile Recycling Places Near You (2024) (International).
Advocacy and accreditation organisations

Main photo: Kai PiIger (Pexels). T shirt photo by Amina Filkins. Smaller graphic of clothing on rack by Polina Tankilevitch.