Why upcycle fabrics?

Of the 100 billion garments produced globally each year, 92 million tons end up in landfills. In America alone, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste – equivalent to 85% of all textiles – end up in landfills on a yearly basis (2023). That’s equivalent to approximately 81.5 pounds per person per year.

Much textile waste ends up in landfills in developing countries due to a cycle of high consumption in wealthier nations followed by exports of unwanted clothing, often disguised as charity. These developing countries often lack the infrastructure to handle the massive volume of discarded textiles, leading to the clothes piling up in landfills or illegal dumps. These sites, often poorly managed, become repositories for mountains of fabric. The sheer amount of low-quality or unusable clothing overwhelms local systems, causing environmental problems like land and water pollution and clogging gutters, which exacerbates flooding. Synthetic materials can leach chemicals into the soil and groundwater. The visual blight and the environmental hazards posed by these textile mountains are a stark reality for communities living near these sites.

Upcycling fabrics and other textiles - reusing them for new purposes - helps the environment by diverting these materials from landfills, conserves natural resources by reducing the need to produce new fabrics and textiles, and decreases pollution and carbon emissions associated with manufacturing new textiles.

Sources: Earth.org, Sustainability Directory

People sifting through a textile dump outside Accra, in Ghana, on October 9, 2023.

Photo credit: Kevin McElvaney/Greenpeace