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As per veteran BBC journalist Nick Thorpe, the issue with today’s society is not so much that it appreciates material possessions more but rather that it fails to value them enough. Why is a t-shirt only one dollar? Low-quality materials, heavy automation, mass manufacturing methods, outsourcing to nations that import clothing, and underpaid labour are a few of the contributing reasons. Since most clothes are thrown in landfills, fast and inexpensive fashion negatively impacts both the planet and labour. Given that it takes into account a product’s whole lifespan, circularity is the way of the future for the fashion sector. This is why.
What is the Textile Industry’s Primary Issue?
Since garment manufacturers prioritise commercial production, quick return, and low labour costs, it is frequently simple for them to ignore problems like excessive pesticide usage, high catalytic runoff, excessive water usage, forced labour, and a significant carbon footprint. Many clothing items are rarely used until they reach the end of their existence because they are not of the highest quality and because people have adopted a use-and-throw mentality. They wind up in landfills and leave a mess in the locations where they were first produced. According to the assistant minister for environmental and waste management protection in Australia.
Over 800,000 kilograms of recyclable materials and clothes are disposed of annually by Australians, or 90 tonnes each hour. The industry has been drastically underusing the cloth at its disposal. Today, there is a progressively growing understanding of how the fashion business affects the environment and society and the costs they must bear.
How Does Circularity Affect the Flow of Garments?
Manufacturing procedures that turned raw materials into completed goods—typically disposed of in landfills after sales—had been more focused. On the other hand, circularity suggests a cyclical method of production and usage. It tries to add value to these products using the least amount of pure raw materials, leaving no CO₂ emissions, resulting in long-term increased earnings for organisations. The circular economy concept is centred on utilising raw materials with the potential for recyclability, reusability, and sustainability, such as wool and cotton, based on a system employing a closed loop with renewable energy. The strategy is widely utilised to affect the environment as little as possible and repair the harm that the business has already done.
Close-loop Cyclical Concept of Circularity
One of the most popular circular economy models has the natural resources moving through two different cycles. The first is the biological cycle, which deals with the natural commodities that producers buy, and the second is the tech cycle, which deals with utilising synthetic or technology resources. The goal is to create clothes from the most durable materials possible so that consumers may wear them for as long as feasible and have simple access to them to be recycled and reused. The organic compounds generated by the bio cycle would be recycled back into the system after their use cycle to form a more robust organic production system. The synthetic fabrics then return to the production facilities, repurposing them into new items.
Conclusion
The circularity approach in the clothing industry uses sustainable fibres, recyclables, zero waste pattern manufacturing, clean energy, closed-loop manufacturing, biodegradable and organic packing, leasing services, maintenance and repair, and take-back programmes, with an emphasis on conserving energy at every level.
