Who Should Be Responsible for Used Clothing? – State of the Planet

Fashion has a waste problem, with ever-increasing volumes of used textiles clogging up landfills and thrift stores around the globe. Donating clothing might seem like a perfect solution—clothes stay out of the landfill and can be used by those who need them—but this rarely plays out in the real world, as there is simply too much used clothing in circulation. Most used clothing ends up as waste or is exported to counties in the Global South, where it’s resold or eventually ends up at a landfill anyway.

And the waste piles up: The average American consumer discards an estimated 81 pounds of clothing and shoes every year, creating a total of almost 13 million tons of textile waste nationwide, according to the most recent available data (from 2018). Of this waste, just 13% is recycled, while the remaining 87%, or 11 million tons, is sent to landfill or incineration. 

As a graduate student in Columbia’s Sustainability Management program and a production manager for a small fashion brand, I often feel conflicted. In the evenings, I go to class and learn about the ways fashion harms the planet and the people who make clothing, and in the daytime, I go to work where I actively participate in these harmful fashion supply chains.

At my job, I coordinate the development and manufacturing of hundreds of thousands of swimsuits every year. Like many investor-backed brands, we have one goal: growth. We need to increase sales year over year, creating more and more waste.

What happens to these garments, made of microplastic-shedding synthetic fiber blends, when the consumer is done with them? I don’t know. Currently, we have neither the means nor the incentives to take back used swimsuits for recycling, leaving most customers to throw these items in the trash, adding to the mountain of textiles discarded in America every year.

I enrolled at Columbia to learn about solutions to minimize the environmental harm created by the fashion industry. What my studies have made me realize is that it’s very difficult to get brands to act of their own accord, and even if they do, without a coordinated movement, their efforts have little impact alone. Solutions need to be supported by policy to ensure widespread, meaningful change.

A landmark extended producer responsibility (EPR) bill in California says that fashion brands should take responsibility for the clothing that they produce, and I agree.  

The Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 (SB 707) was approved by Governor Gavin Newsom this past September, making California the first U.S. state to enforce a mandatory EPR program for textiles. The bill requires producers of clothing—defined as brands—as well as retailers and manufacturers that sell apparel in the state of California, to join a producer responsibility organization (PRO) to create and fund end-of-life solutions for textiles. In accordance with the act, PROs will orchestrate the collection, transportation, reuse, repair, composting and recycling of used textiles, diverting the waste from landfill.

The bill is a positive step forward, and necessary to address the textile waste crisis.

As one lone brand, it would be impossible for my employer to set up the infrastructure needed to take back and recycle the swimsuits we sell. Used swimsuits are especially difficult to reprocess—there is no widespread cost-effective technology to separate mixed fibers for recycling, so swimsuits and most mixed-fiber clothing are usually downcycled and shredded for use as insulation or mattress stuffing. Or they are simply discarded as trash.

While the bill prioritizes the reuse of clothing, investments in technology and infrastructure to increase the recyclability of clothing are also needed. As part of a PRO, my company and other brands may be able to fund grants to support emerging technology to usefully recycle the synthetic clothing we produce.

An example of this innovation is the Australian enviro-tech start-up Samsara Eco. In partnership with activewear giant Lululemon, they developed an enzyme technology to separate mixed synthetic fiber blends, such as those used commonly in swimwear and activewear. We will need more technology like this if we wish to keep all our clothing out of landfills.

Under the EPR bill, fashion companies are incentivized through lower annual PRO fees to design with recyclability, reuse and repair in mind, utilizing eco-design strategies such as designing for disassembly and using compostable materials or single fibers to facilitate recycling.

Companies will have plenty of time to adjust. The bill has passed but now the work begins to establish a PRO and develop the plan to fulfill the requirements of the legislation. The actual program will not commence operations until after July 2028.

Some brands may be concerned about the financial burden placed on them; however, the penalty will likely be small. They should expect to pay no more than a few cents per garment, in line with other existing EPR programs in countries such as France and the Netherlands.

Those of us in the fashion industry need this formal policy to provide a clear framework, guidance and motivation to enact change. We won’t do it on our own.

While donating your used clothing may feel like the right thing to do, it is not the answer to our textile waste crisis. The onus should be on the producers of clothing, the fashion industry, to take back what they produce and keep it out of landfill. We need a real plan—convenient textile collection sites, superior sorting and recycling infrastructure, technological innovation to increase recyclability and accountability from those who create the waste.

It’s time for fashion brands to pay up.

Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Columbia Climate School, Earth Institute or Columbia University.