Due to fast fashion, textile waste has been increasing as we choose to buy new clothing over repairing ones with small tears or holes. This increase in textile waste is also prevalent in Singapore, which may be easy to forget due to our clean streets. In 2018 and 2019 alone, Singapore produced 220,000 and 168,000 tonnes of textile waste (NEA).
To put it into perspective, that means that each person in Singapore has disposed of around 38kg of textiles in 2018, and 29.5kg in 2019 (assuming a population size of 5,703,600 in 2019). And if you think about it, a full load of laundry is about 4-5 kg, so in Singapore, we dispose more than 6 laundry loads of textiles each year. Of course some of these disposed textiles are not entirely because of fast fashion, but we cannot deny the effect of fast fashion on how easily we dispose of textiles if they have the slightest sign of damage.
In Singapore, most of our waste is incinerated to produce electricity. However, in most countries, most textile waste gets sent to sit in landfills. Natural fibres such as wool and cotton, release methane - a greenhouse gas that traps more heat than carbon dioxide does in the atmosphere, contributing to the global warming problem.
I'll leave you with a Ted Talk that discusses 3 ways to reduce textile waste:
Yours truly,
Bremen
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