After it’s left your wardrobe, nearly every garment eventually winds up burned for fuel or tossed in a dump, oozing planet-warming greenhouse gasses and shedding microplastics.
The problem is getting worse. The Environmental Protection Agency says in 2018 Americans threw away more than 11 million tons of textiles, nearly twice as much by weight as they did in 2000.
There is a growing effort to fend off the tsunami of ultra-fast fashion currently flowing into landfills, from chemical recycling that can melt down modern fabric blends to boutique designers giving old clothes new life through upcycling. But the first stop for most used clothing is a donation bin, where it enters the global supply chain for secondhand items.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/01/28/textile-waste-recycling
