Statistics

• One garbage truck of clothes (PDF) is burned or sent to landfills every second. 
• Discarded clothing made of non-biodegradable fabrics can sit in landfills for up to 200 years.
• It takes 713 gallons of water to make one cotton shirt, enough to meet the average person’s drinking needs for 2.5 years.
• Making a pair of jeans (PDF) produces as much greenhouse gases as driving a car more than 80 miles.

Where we are heading

• The average consumer bought 60 percent more clothes in 2014 than in 2000, but kept each garment for half as long.
• An expected 400 percent increase in world GDP by 2050 will mean even greater demand for clothing.

Where we should be heading

•  One report found that addressing environmental and social problems created by the fashion industry would provide a $192 billion overall benefit to the global economy by 2030. The annual value of clothing discarded prematurely is more than $400 billion.

Reference

Drew, Deborah and Reichart, Elizabeth. “By the number: the economic, social, and environmental impacts of ‘fast fashion'” GreenBiz. 17 Jan. 2019 https://www.greenbiz.com/article/numbers-economic-social-and-environmental-impacts-fast-fashion