Can Fabric Waste Become Fashion’s Resource?
24 May 2021Op-Ed
by Geoffrey Jones and Shelly Xu
24 May 2021|by Geoffrey Jones and Shelly Xu
COVID-19 worsened the textile waste crisis. Now, it s time for the fashion industry to address this spiraling problem, say
Geoffrey Jones and
COVID-19 has broken fashion’s supply chain. As a result, an already wasteful industry has become more wasteful.
Even before the pandemic, the global apparel industry was producing about 92 million tons of textile waste a year. That’s about one garbage truck’s worth of fabric waste getting landfilled or burned every second, according to a 2017 report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Reviewed by Christine Perkins
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Everywhere you look in Whatcom County, Patagonia clothing is ubiquitous. Maybe it’s because so many of us love to spend time being active in the outdoors. Maybe it’s because the clothes are high quality and last a long time. Maybe owning expensive gear is a status symbol. Or perhaps Patagonia’s long-held environmental values resonate with local consumers.
Whatever the case, the folks at Patagonia don’t care. In 2011, they even took out a full-page ad in the
New York Times proclaiming, “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” It detailed the environmental costs of buying a new Patagonia fleece and encouraged people to hold on to their old ones instead. This may seem like a strange message for an international retailer. But it’s entirely consistent with the worldview of Patagonia’s founder and owner, Yvon Chouinard (pictured), as explained in his memoir/business primer