Textile waste is an urgent global problem, with only 12 percent being recycled globally, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Even less—just 1 percent—of discarded clothing is recycled into new clothing, and the majority is used for low-value items such as insulation or mattress padding. Nowhere in the world is the problem more pressing than in China, the world's largest producer and consumer of textiles, where more than 26 million tons of clothing are thrown away each year, according to government statistics. Most of them end up in landfills, it says euronews.com.
Иthe country's clothing industry is dominated by fast fashion – cheap clothes made from non-recyclable synthetics rather than cotton. Made from petrochemicals that contribute to climate change, air and water pollution, synthetic fabrics make up 70 percent of China's domestic apparel sales. China's footprint is global: giant e-commerce brands Shein and Temu make the country one of the world's biggest producers of cheap fashion, selling in more than 150 countries.
According to the Chinese government, only about 20 percent of China's textiles are recycled — and almost all of that is cotton.
"Chinese cotton is not without its own blemishes," says Claudia Bennett of the nonprofit Human Rights Foundation. "A large number of them come from forced labor in Xinjiang province from the country's ethnic Uyghur minority," she points out.
In May, the U.S. blocked imports from 26 Chinese cotton traders and warehouses to avoid goods made with Uyghur forced labor.
"But because the supply chain is so tight, Uyghur cotton is used in clothes made in other countries that don't carry the 'Made in China' label." Many, many, many clothing brands are linked to Uyghur forced labor through cotton. They "hide behind a lack of transparency in the supply chain," says Bennett.
Companies in the country do not care about the protection of human rights
According to a report this year by independent fashion organization Remake, which rates major clothing companies on their environmental, human rights and equity practices, there is little accountability among the best-known brands.
The group gave Shein, whose online marketplace brings together some 6000 Chinese clothing factories under its label, just 6 out of a possible 150 points. Temu scored zero. Kim Kardashian's American label SKIMS and low-cost fashion brand Fashion Nova also received zero points. US retailer Everlane scored the highest at 40 points, with only half of those for sustainability practices.
China's domestic politics do not help
Cotton recycled from used clothing is prohibited from being used to make new clothing in China. This rule was originally aimed at eliminating routine Chinese recycling operations for dirty or otherwise contaminated materials. But now it means the huge spools of tightly woven rope-like cotton yarn produced at the Wenzhou Tiancheng factory from used clothes can only be sold for export, mostly to Europe.
Many Chinese consumers are reluctant to buy used items anyway, something the Wenzhou plant's sales director Kouen Tang attributes to rising household incomes. Yet, among younger Chinese, a growing awareness of sustainability has contributed to the emergence of newly established "upcycled" clothing businesses.
“Recycled clothing sold in stores like Reclothing Bank is priced much higher than fast fashion brands due to their expensive production methods. And therein lies the real problem," says Sheng Lu, a professor of fashion and apparel at the University of Delaware. "Research has repeatedly shown that consumers are reluctant to pay more for clothing made from recycled materials, but instead actually expect a lower price because they see the clothing as second-hand," he says.
With the higher costs of acquiring, sorting and processing used clothing, he doesn't see sustainable fashion succeeding on a large scale in China, where clothes are so cheap to produce.
"Companies have no financial incentive," he points out.
For real change, he said, there must be "clearer signals from the very top," referring to government goals like those that have driven China's EV industry.
"However, in China, the government can be a friend to any sector, so if China's communist leaders see economic potential, it can trigger a policy shift to stimulate new investment in a sustainable way," says Sheng Lu.
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