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According to the EPA, Americans each discarded an average of 80 pounds of clothing each per year. This means that Americans are trashing more textiles and fast fashion than ever before. In the last year the amount of clothing thrown away by Americans has doubled. The textiles, thrown into landfills, are toxic and are equivalent to the emissions of 7.3 million cars emitting carbon dioxide. Trashing these clothes is a tremendous waste of money. New York City spends $20.6 million each year to send textiles to landfills or incinerators. Other places in the United States spend $45 to send one ton of waste to a landfill. Although clothing bin programs like Re-Fashion New York and Housing Works gather clothing to resale, it isn’t enough. According to the Council of Textile Recycling, thrift shops such as Goodwill and Salvation only sell 30 to 75 percent of the textiles donated to them. They bag up the clothing that doesn’t sell in the stores to be sold to recyclers.
Fast fashion forces these charities to process more and more garments in less time to gain the same revenue. Fast fashion is cheaply made and goes from purchaser to discarded clothing faster and faster. Even the Council of Textile Recycling sorts through the clothing donated to them and discards the cheap “fast fashion.” Those in Asia and Africa where these items are donated often discard the cheaply made fast fashion too because it is useless to them.
America’s discarded clothing in the landfill costs the earth. It wastes resources to make this clothing and then it ends up back into the landfill. When it goes back into the earth, there’s been expenses not only to the company and the people creating the garment, but a large use of virgin natural resources.
Many international companies like H&M, Levi’s, and others still make their fast fashion, but have begun to recycle garments. Others such as Gucci and Stella McCartney and others reuse old materials to make new materials. For other edition one of one, art to wear designers such a Reem Alasadi and Tatiana Palnitska,, new clothing items are made of vintage and reused materials.
Fashion should never be thought of a disposable product; therefore, fast fashion that is thrown into the landfill decomposes and releases methane gas and contributes to global warming. The dyes and chemicals from this fast fashion leach into the soil and contaminate our water. Also the amount of space (126 million cubic yards in only one year) is taken up by these tons of discarded textiles and clogs up the landfills. Although some of this secondhand clothing is recycled into insulation, rags, padding in furniture, and recycled into fabrics most of it is put into the landfills.
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