Hua, Mel & Chatterji, Mo. “Recycled material could solve most of fast fashion’s sustainability problems. Here’s how.” World Economic Forum, 6 June 2023, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/06/recycled-material-could-solve-most-of-fast-fashion-s-sustainability-problems-here-s-how/.
This article discusses how the fashion industry could move to the major use of recycled materials. The article mentions 3 steps to push the industry into recycled textiles. The first step is re-training and educating fashion designers on recycled materials, as many have biases against these materials for being “weaker” than other materials. The second step is to have governments push for material collection so companies can harvest them and recycle them properly. The third step is to invest in clothing recycling technologies so that companies can recycle clothing more efficiently.
I’m glad that there are realistic options to push for recycled clothing, but I don’t believe that consumers will actually be recycling their clothing if given the option. It reminds me of the issue involving recycling electronics, many consumers just straight up do not recycle their electronics and it ruins the environment, even though there is often an easy option to do so.
It is evident that transitioning to recycled materials in the fashion industry may boost sustainability greatly. The skepticism about consumer participation in clothes recycling, on the other hand, presents a reasonable problem. How can the fashion industry encourage and promote consumers to recycle their clothes in order to assure the success of this transition to sustainable practices?
Thank you for your response. I think by having the fashion industry run ads to encourage consumers to bring their clothing in to recycling sites will drastically improve fashion’s sustainability.
I completely agree that recycling clothing could really make a positive impact on our world and I think people have started to do this more often. Especially as thrifting becomes more popular since it’s a trend and a way to make money as well as it’s cheaper to purchase clothing. More people will feed into this idea and hopefully, most of the world will recycle their clothes.
Thank you for your response. I do think that making recycling clothing a trend will really help fashion’s sustainability, the issue is, how do we start that trend? That is something for marketers to figure out.