Clothes
(Purely personal perceptions, not necessarily correct !)
Since 2000, the number of clothes produced each year has doubled and exceeded 100 billion pieces for the first time in 2014, generating 92 million tons of textile waste every year, while less than 25% of the textile waste is recycled globally. If these waste fibers are reused, they can far exceed the annually world’s cotton production. Because in 2020, the global cotton output was 24.339 million tons.
The pollution of fashion industry is rarely mentioned, but in fact, the global fashion industry produces 20% of the global wastewater and 10% of carbon emissions every year (exceeding the total emissions of all international flights and sea transportation). In addition, the textile industry is one of the major factors causing plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. It is estimated that during the washing process of plastic-based textiles, about 500,000 tons of plastic microfibers flow into the ocean every year.