Recently, The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has partnered with Kenyan spoken word poet Beatrice Kariuki towards a zero-waste world, shed light on high-impact sectors where consumers can make a real difference.
The Ellen Macarthur Foundation, a UNEP partner, has wondered that a truckload of abandoned textiles is dumped in landfill or incinerated every second, also people are buying 60 percent more clothes and wearing them for half as long, reads a press release by the UNEP.
Kariuki said, “We need circular industries where old looks are made new. Less packaging, more reuse. Threads that last.”
Basically, plastic fibres are polluting the oceans, the wastewater, toxic dyes, and the exploitation of underpaid workers.
As Fast fashion is a big business, and while the environmental costs are rising, experts say there is another way to circular economy for textiles.
At this month’s UN Climate Conference (COP27) in Egypt, UNEP and the non-profit Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) held an event on ‘Circular Systems for a Net Positive Fashion Industry’, which drew industry leaders to discuss routes towards a circular economy for the industry, with less waste, less pollution, more reuse, and more recycling.
So, UNEP and GFA are spearheading a consultation across the fashion industry to define a path towards becoming net-positive—meaning an industry that gives back more to the world than it takes out.
Also, UNEP is producing a roadmap towards sustainability and circularity in the textile value chain and working on shifting the narrative of the sector, looking at the role of consumption with a guideline to sustainable fashion communication.
Besides, the fast fashion business model of quick turnover, high volume, and cheap prices is under pressure from consumers who are demanding change to resilient garments from a sustainable industry, a goal supported by the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion.
