When I first read the headline, ‘Clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world’ I knew I would have to look into my family’s contribution to that. According to the reports, in the Western world we wear one piece of clothing only seven times before chucking it out. It’s shocking but, thinking about it, I must admit, I was no different years ago. We are consuming textiles at the fastest rate ever – without having an insight of the complicated manufacturing process of apparel market - and are buying clothes cheap, while social media and advertisers constantly deliver the same message – buy new, be new, be happy. Clothing has become just as single-use as coffee cups. The amazing documentary, The True Cost, helped me to have a better understanding of the garment industry and the polluting effect of clothes – it also made me tear up about the human cruelty attached to whole business. So, in light of this, here are some ways we’ve started reducing our textile waste as a family.
Take the no-spending challenge