The real ecological impact of used clothes

There are plenty of reasons to get rid of your old clothes:

1. It's no longer fashionable / I want to change my look
2. My body has changed
3. The clothes are damaged (from the laundry accident, the stain, the fabric that has deteriorated, the color has faded, or even the clothes have holes in them)
4. I need to make room in my closet

Ok, but what do you do with your end-of-life clothes? Most of the time:

1. They are donated to associations or relatives
2. sold second hand
3. deposited in recycling terminals
4. possibly sometimes even put in the trash

Of course, donation and second hand are only possible if the garment is not altered. Yes, but sooner or later, after changing owners, the fabric will end up being damaged, the garment will get stained, have holes, shrink... From then on, you will necessarily have to consider another solution to get rid of it than donation or second hand. Most of the time, the garment will then be deposited in a recycling terminal.

But what happens to it then?

1. Some are donated to local charities. However, this is not possible if the garment is altered
2. A small proportion is recycled to make insulation for homes
3. The rest (+50%) is sent to developing countries to be resold on international second-hand markets. Ghana, for example, receives 160 tonnes of textile waste per day.

International second-hand market? What is that ?

Entrepreneurs buy “wholesale” bags of used clothing in order to resell them at retail. The problem: the clothes contained in these bags are often unsaleable, because they are in too poor condition to be resold. Entrepreneurs therefore often buy these bags at a loss, and the majority of the clothes they contain are thrown into unregulated open landfills, often even ending up polluting beaches and oceans. In many cases, these garments are non-biodegradable, derived from plastic. This post-consumer textile waste is a disaster for the environment, which can no longer be ignored given the urgency of the ecological situation in which we find ourselves. This is a direct consequence of our consumption patterns: the consumption of clothes doubled between 2000 and 2014, but their lifespan was halved (in particular because of the deterioration in the quality of our clothes).

But then what to do?

All is not lost if we react. Solutions to consider are:

1. consume responsibly / produce responsibly
2. extend the life of our clothes as much as possible
3. avoid making it into textile waste

For this last point, only effective recycling, or composting of clothes, can solve the problem.

Yes, but the recyclable or biodegradable nature of our clothes must be anticipated from their design:

1. Single-fiber materials (100%) recyclable and/or biodegradable
2. No additions (zips, buttons, etc.) altering the recyclable / biodegradable nature of the garment
3. Set up circuits to collect end-of-life clothes and manage their composting / recycling efficiently

In a future article, we will explain to you how the innovative and circular concept of Auberlitys makes it possible to implement all these solutions (responsible consumption / production and maximum lifespan, zero textile waste), in a real ecological and ethical approach, while bringing a real designer touch to your looks.

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