ECF Circular Fashion Education Toolkit

Online Learning Resources for Students and Teachers

 

Innovative technology and circular business models

It’s no secret that the US$1.9 trillion fashion industry can create enormous environmental problems. While sustainability is a challenge for the fashion industry, it offers many exciting new opportunities too. Did you know that 95% of the textiles thrown away each year could be re-used, recycled or repaired? The reality is that 87% of materials currently used in clothing production end up in landfill or are incinerated after use. 

This module looks at the innovative brands and start-ups that are creating new fibres, designs, manufacturing processes and circular economy business models, which use fewer natural resources and result in far less waste and pollution – all of which aim to build a more sustainable future for fashion.

 
 

Guiding Questions of this Module

  • What do we mean by a “circular economy”? How is it different from a linear, aka “take, make and dispose”, economy? Why is a circular economy better for the environment?

  • How can we apply circular thinking to the fashion industry?

  • How is innovation reducing fashion’s environmental impact, and increasing the re-use and recycling of clothing?

  • Why is recycling clothing difficult? What are some of the challenges?

 

Curriculum Links

Units of Inquiry:
Sharing the Planet, How We Organise Ourselves, How We Express Ourselves

Subjects:
Social Studies, Language & Arts, Maths, Business, Science, Design & Technology

Units of Inquiry:
Sharing the Planet, How We Organise Ourselves, How We Express Ourselves

Key Topics

Take, make and dispose: the linear economy

  • Most of the world’s industries use what is known as a “linear business model”. This is also called a “take, make and dispose” model, meaning:
    • We take large amounts of natural resources from the environment, which are often non-renewable;
    • We make a huge amount of goods using these resources, causing waste, pollution and environmental damage;
    • We dispose of used goods in landfill or incinerators before starting again.
  • The clothing industry works on this “take, make and dispose” model. Everything we wear is made from natural resources – be it land, water, oil or trees:
    • We take natural resources;
    • We use these resources to make garments at an unsustainable rate of 100 billion garments annually, polluting our land, water and air in the process;
    • We dispose of often barely-worn clothing into landfill or incinerate it, before buying new clothes made from more natural resources.
  • This linear model has proven to be unsustainable, wasteful, and causes major environmental issues like pollution, waste and climate change. You can learn more about the environmental impact of fashion in Module 2, and learn how overproduction and overconsumption are contributing to those issues in Module 1.
  • In Hong Kong alone, we throw away around 170 tonnes of clothing every single day, wasting the natural resources that went into making them.
  • At the same time, the fashion industry is facing more scrutiny on it’s sustainability than ever before. Studies show that consumers, especially “Gen Z”, are increasingly asking for more sustainable products and want to support brands that align with their values. Nine in ten Gen Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues. With Gen Z already accounting for 40% of global consumers, these are the people that brands will be looking to satisfy in the future.

Closing the loop: the circular economy

  • To protect the environment and live within our planet’s boundaries, we need to rethink and redesign how we manage natural resources, how we make and use products, and what we do with things we don’t want anymore.
  • One idea is to change from a linear model and to build a “circular economy” instead.
  • A circular economy is a new way of designing, making and using things within our planet’s boundaries.
  • Instead of throwing things away, we continuously re-use, repair and (as a last resort) recycle them, meaning products, components and materials aren’t needlessly wasted.
  • The circular economy is based on three principles:
    1. Design out waste and pollution
      When things are designed, important decisions are made that impact what it is made from, how it is made, how it is used, and (less so) what happens to it at the end of its life. Around 80% of clothing’s environmental impact comes from these design decisions. By changing how we design things, we can avoid creating waste and pollution in the first place.
    2. Keep products and materials in use
      The circular economy keeps valuable resources in use for as long as possible. By designing goods and business models so that products, components and materials can be recovered, repaired, re-used, and recycled (only when they cannot be used any more), we avoid landfill and also reduce the amount of natural resources extracted to produce new goods and services.
    3. Regenerate natural systems
      A circular economy avoids the use of non-renewable resources (for example, by using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels) and aims to preserve and actively improve renewable resources (for example, by switching to regenerative agricultural practices that replenish and improve the health of soil rather than degrade it).
  • In order for the circular economy to bring significant improvements to our environmental impact, it needs to be widely adopted across industries - today, only 8.6% of the global economy is circular. Shifting to a circular economy will require lots of campaigning, legislation and communication, as it is a radical shift from our usual linear way of doing things.
  • You can learn more about the circular economy by visiting the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website.

The circular economy across different industries

  • The circular economy looks different across different industries:
    • In the consumer electronics industry, mobile phone company FairPhone is designing durable phones with components that can easily be accessed, repaired or replaced with readily available parts in order to extend the life of their phones;
    • In the food industry, NGOs like Feeding HK redistribute food overstock to local communities in need, and apps like Too Good To Go are allowing restaurants to sell food that would otherwise be thrown away;
    • In the packaging industry, Ecovative Design is creating fully compostable mushroom-based packaging that can be composted and returned to the soil in a customer’s own home;
    • In the automotive industry Ford is using recycled jeans for car bonnet insulation proving one man’s trash is another’s treasure!
  • Another key concept in the circular economy is a shift from ownership to access. The idea behind this concept is that we often only need to use a product for a short period of time, so rather than owning it, we could “access” it from a service provider for the length of time that we need it, and after we’re done with it we could return it, for it to be re-used by someone else, remanufactured, or recycled. This concept could apply to all sorts of things, from headphones to lightbulbs.
  • Platforms that enable used goods to be redistributed to new owners, like Ebay, and platforms that enable goods to be shared or rented by multiple people (e.g. cars, kitchen appliances, tools, workspaces, homes and even food), are also examples of a circular economy. Even Spotify and Netflix, which make physical products digital, and thereby reduce resource usage, are examples.

Creating fashion’s circular economy: designing out waste and pollution

  • Innovative brands and start-ups are researching and developing new materials and processes that reduce the amount of natural resources used in clothing production, while also reducing pollution and waste.
  • Material innovations include new bio-based fibres made from mushrooms, pineapple leaves, oranges, and even fish skin! Other fibres are being made from recycled materials including plastic ocean waste, recycled plastic bottles, and old clothes.
  • Engineers, brands, textile mills, farmers and certification bodies throughout the fashion chain are also working to reduce the impact of traditional fibres. Examples include switching to organic cotton grown without toxic chemicals, using responsibly-harvested wood pulp from renewable forests for cellulosic fibres, or producing wool by regenerative agriculture that prioritises healthy soil.
  • Once the materials are sourced, there are many ways to reduce production waste at the design stage, including:
    • Zero-waste design (this technique eliminates fabric waste during pattern planning, for example the Make/Use System developed by designer and researcher Holly McQuillan);
    • Creating virtual 3D clothing models to enable virtual sampling and fitting, reducing production waste.
  • Brands and suppliers are also working to reduce water and energy consumption, and minimise manufacturing pollution and waste. Current innovations include:
  • At the retail and distribution stage, brands are reducing energy consumption during transport by rethinking their logistics, and switching to renewable energy in their retail stores.

Creating fashion’s circular economy: keeping products in use

  • Increasing the number of times that clothes are worn is the simplest way of “designing out” fashion waste and pollution.
  • Innovative brands are increasing the length of time we wear our clothes through new business models that keep them in use for longer or increase the number of people who wear each item. The following are examples of circular business models:
    • Repair: Good quality clothing is often discarded when one part is damaged through wear and tear, e.g. a button falling off or faulty zip. By offering repair services, brands can help consumers use their clothes for longer. For example, Nudie Jeans offers lifetime free repairs on their jeans and sends “repair kits” to help customers perform simple mending at home.
    • Resale: Many unwanted clothes are often in perfectly good condition. Resale, also known as “secondhand”, “pre-loved” or “thrift”, means collecting unwanted used clothing and selling it to a different consumer to enjoy – usually at a cheaper price. For example, Patagonia’s “Worn Wear” platform and The North Face Renewed. collect and sell used clothing from their respective brands. There are also independent platforms like ThredUP, Vestiaire Collective, Retykle and HULA that re-sell used clothes from multiple brands. Resale benefits the environment twice; saving unwanted clothing from landfill and re-directing the purchaser from buying new, thereby saving the natural resources that would have gone into making new clothes.
    • Rental: Sometimes we only need clothes for a special occasion like a school dance or wedding, or for a short length of time like for fast-growing babies or infrequent ski trips. Rather than buying clothes to use for such a short period, some businesses are offering rental services so that multiple customers can wear the same item of clothing, but only when they need it. Examples include Danish company Vigga, which offers short-term baby clothes rental, with five different owners using them before the clothes are eventually recycled, or Hong Kong-based Pret-a-Dress.
    • Subscription rental: Subscription rental is a new model where customers pay a monthly fee to rent, wear, then return a number of garments – a bit like a library. This model is aimed at people who enjoy changing their look regularly without needing to buy new clothes. Some examples include Le Tote, Rent the Runway and Y Closet.
    • Takeback programmes: A “takeback programme” is when brands collect unwanted clothes from their customers in store or by post, with the aim of keeping those clothes in use and saving them from landfill. Brands usually work with third-party organisations to arrange collection and redistribution of the clothes for resale, re-use or recycling, for example, Gap Hong Kong’s takeback programme with Redress.
  • As these business models rely on clothes being repeatedly re-used, brands also need to make sure they are designing clothes that are:
    • Durable enough for many uses;
    • Timeless enough to avoid falling out of fashion quickly;
    • Multi-functional enough to extend their use, for example being trans-seasonal or suitable for both work and leisure.

Creating fashion’s circular economy: recycling

  • Repairing or re-using clothes is usually better for the environment than recycling them, because recycling uses additional energy and resources.
  • However, not everything can be repaired or re-used; sometimes clothes are too broken, or difficult to re-use, like swimwear or underwear. In those situations, recycling is still more sustainable than sending clothes to landfill.
  • Textile recycling is currently low compared to other industries. For example, in Hong Kong, the recycling rates are 39.1% for paper and 3.6% for plastic, but only 0.4% for textiles.
  • Most “recycled” clothing you see in shops today isn’t recycled from textiles, but from items like recycled plastic bottles. Worldwide, 87% of materials used in clothing production go to landfill or are incinerated after use, with less than 1% recycled to produce new clothing.
  • At present there are three different ways to perform textile fibre recycling: mechanical recycling, chemical recycling and biological recycling.
  • Mechanical recycling is the most common form of fibre recycling today. It involves mechanically shredding the fabrics and separating it into fibres. It has several challenges:
    • The “output” recycled fibres are often low quality, making them unsuitable for clothing. Most recycled textile fibres are used for insulation, often in buildings and cars. If used in clothing, they are mixed with new “virgin” fibres to make them strong enough.
    • Mechanical recycling facilities usually can’t process commonly-used mixed fibres like polyester/elastane, polyester/cotton, and cotton/elastane.
    • This also means it is important to know what materials the clothes are made of, making missing garment labels problematic.
    • Most clothing has trims, accessories and fastenings like zips, buttons, beads, sequins or metal rivets on jeans pockets. These can’t be recycled, and are slow and difficult to remove. Consequently, large amounts of clothing is lost through their removal and ends up incinerated or in landfill.
    • Clothes processing and sorting at recycling facilities is still mostly done by hand.
    • Retrieving clothes for recycling is challenging. Our current business models mean that brands have no control over their clothes once they’ve left the store.
  • To increase the quantity and quality of textile recycling, companies worldwide are working on innovative new chemical and biological recycling technologies.
  • These technologies can separate mixed fibres and convert old garments into new fibres that are of good enough quality to be used in new clothing – essentially, making new clothes from old! Some examples of these technologies include:
  • Emerging technologies are also helping to make clothes recycling more efficient, for example:
    • Wear2 yarn dissolves at high temperatures, making it easier to remove trims and fastenings before recycling;
    • RFID tracking technology can be integrated into clothing to help recyclers automatically identify what materials the clothes are made of, even without garment labels.
  • These technologies could revolutionise the fashion industry and reduce the use of new resources. However, most of these technologies are still in research and development or pilot phases and have not been applied at scale.
  • It’s also worth remembering that recycling alone cannot fix all of the problems. Even if we master garment recycling, we still need to break our habit of producing and consuming too many clothes.

Creating fashion’s circular economy: upcycling

  • Upcycling is a design technique where old textiles are re-used to create new products that are of equal, or even higher, value than the original product.
  • For example, using the material from old jeans and redesigning it into a denim skirt, or using the material from old T-shirts and turning it into T-shirt yarn, that can then be knitted into rugs or scarves.
  • Examples of brands using upcycling methods include:
    • A collaboration between Hong Kong designer Jesse Lee, Levis® and Hong Kong upcycling brand The R Collective to upcycle Levis® denim samples into a new collection of jeans, skirts and jackets;
    • Dutch brand Wintervacht, which upcycles blankets into jackets;
    • Hong Kong designer Janko Lam, who upcycles unwanted fabrics into modern Cheongsams under the brand Classics Anew;
    • Patagonia’s “ReCrafted” collection, where unrepairable Patagonia clothes are upcycled into new garments;
    • FREITAG, which makes bags and accessories from upcycled truck tarp and seatbelts;
    • Bemz, which makes furniture covers from upcycled garments;
    • Better World Fashion, who make upcycled leather jackets and bags from used leather products (and also use a leasing and takeback model to extend the life of their garments).
  • Upcycling can be hard to produce large-scale due to the nonuniformity and limited availability of raw materials to feed into the design and making process.
  • For example, a brand might use the leftover fabrics of another brand to create a range of upcycled jackets, which limits the quantity, colour, and type of fabrics that the brand could access.
  • As a result, brands using this method are often smaller, boutique companies, and collections are usually of a limited range. (But remember, we learnt in Module 1 that clothes were not always produced in large scale!)

Fix up, look sharp: looking out for “greenwashing”

  • While it’s definitely encouraging to see brands responding to consumer demands for sustainability, it can sometimes be hard to know what “sustainable fashion” means, and whether certain brands are legitimately making a difference.
  • Greenwashing is when a company says it is doing more for the environment and/or people than it actually is – for example, when brands use words such as “green”, “environmentally friendly”, “eco-friendly”, “eco-conscious”, “sustainable”, or “natural” in their marketing, but cannot back up their claims with hard facts or data.
  • Another example is where brands do a small amount of “good” somewhere, but create far more negative impacts elsewhere.
  • We should be cautious about taking a brand’s marketing at face value – we need to do our own research too, finding solid information that supports a brand’s claims. Try looking for more details on clothing labels and brands’ sustainability reports and websites, look for environmental certifications, or message the brand via email or social media. You can also use third-party reports and tools, such as Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Transparency Index and GoodOnYou, which compare and rate brands according to their sustainability.

Take, make and dispose: the linear economy

  • Most of the world’s industries use what is known as a “linear business model”. This is also called a “take, make and dispose” model, meaning:
    • We take large amounts of natural resources from the environment, which are often non-renewable;
    • We make a huge amount of goods using these resources, causing waste, pollution and environmental damage;
    • We dispose of used goods in landfill or incinerators before starting again.
  • The clothing industry works on this “take, make and dispose” model. Everything we wear is made from natural resources – be it land, water, oil or trees:
    • We take natural resources;
    • We use these resources to make garments at an unsustainable rate of 100 billion garments annually, polluting our land, water and air in the process;
    • We dispose of often barely-worn clothing into landfill or incinerate it, before buying new clothes made from more natural resources.
  • This linear model has proven to be unsustainable, wasteful, and causes major environmental issues like pollution, waste and climate change. You can learn more about the environmental impact of fashion in Module 2, and learn how overproduction and overconsumption are contributing to those issues in Module 1.
  • In Hong Kong alone, we throw away around 170 tonnes of clothing every single day, wasting the natural resources that went into making them.
  • At the same time, the fashion industry is facing more scrutiny on it’s sustainability than ever before. Studies show that consumers, especially “Gen Z”, are increasingly asking for more sustainable products and want to support brands that align with their values. Nine in ten Gen Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues. With Gen Z already accounting for 40% of global consumers, these are the people that brands will be looking to satisfy in the future.

Closing the loop: the circular economy

  • To protect the environment and live within our planet’s boundaries, we need to rethink and redesign how we manage natural resources, how we make and use products, and what we do with things we don’t want anymore.
  • One idea is to change from a linear model and to build a “circular economy” instead.
  • A circular economy is a new way of designing, making and using things within our planet’s boundaries.
  • Instead of throwing things away, we continuously re-use, repair and (as a last resort) recycle them, meaning products, components and materials aren’t needlessly wasted.
  • The circular economy is based on three principles:
    1. Design out waste and pollution
      When things are designed, important decisions are made that impact what it is made from, how it is made, how it is used, and (less so) what happens to it at the end of its life. Around 80% of clothing’s environmental impact comes from these design decisions. By changing how we design things, we can avoid creating waste and pollution in the first place.
    2. Keep products and materials in use
      The circular economy keeps valuable resources in use for as long as possible. By designing goods and business models so that products, components and materials can be recovered, repaired, re-used, and recycled (only when they cannot be used any more), we avoid landfill and also reduce the amount of natural resources extracted to produce new goods and services.
    3. Regenerate natural systems
      A circular economy avoids the use of non-renewable resources (for example, by using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels) and aims to preserve and actively improve renewable resources (for example, by switching to regenerative agricultural practices that replenish and improve the health of soil rather than degrade it).
  • In order for the circular economy to bring significant improvements to our environmental impact, it needs to be widely adopted across industries - today, only 8.6% of the global economy is circular. Shifting to a circular economy will require lots of campaigning, legislation and communication, as it is a radical shift from our usual linear way of doing things.
  • You can learn more about the circular economy by visiting the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website.

The circular economy across different industries

  • The circular economy looks different across different industries:
    • In the consumer electronics industry, mobile phone company FairPhone is designing durable phones with components that can easily be accessed, repaired or replaced with readily available parts in order to extend the life of their phones;
    • In the food industry, NGOs like Feeding HK redistribute food overstock to local communities in need, and apps like Too Good To Go are allowing restaurants to sell food that would otherwise be thrown away;
    • In the packaging industry, Ecovative Design is creating fully compostable mushroom-based packaging that can be composted and returned to the soil in a customer’s own home;
    • In the automotive industry Ford is using recycled jeans for car bonnet insulation proving one man’s trash is another’s treasure!
  • Another key concept in the circular economy is a shift from ownership to access. The idea behind this concept is that we often only need to use a product for a short period of time, so rather than owning it, we could “access” it from a service provider for the length of time that we need it, and after we’re done with it we could return it, for it to be re-used by someone else, remanufactured, or recycled. This concept could apply to all sorts of things, from headphones to lightbulbs.
  • Platforms that enable used goods to be redistributed to new owners, like Ebay, and platforms that enable goods to be shared or rented by multiple people (e.g. cars, kitchen appliances, tools, workspaces, homes and even food), are also examples of a circular economy. Even Spotify and Netflix, which make physical products digital, and thereby reduce resource usage, are examples.

Creating fashion’s circular economy: designing out waste and pollution

  • Innovative brands and start-ups are researching and developing new materials and processes that reduce the amount of natural resources used in clothing production, while also reducing pollution and waste.
  • Material innovations include new bio-based fibres made from mushrooms, pineapple leaves, oranges, and even fish skin! Other fibres are being made from recycled materials including plastic ocean waste, recycled plastic bottles, and old clothes.
  • Engineers, brands, textile mills, farmers and certification bodies throughout the fashion chain are also working to reduce the impact of traditional fibres. Examples include switching to organic cotton grown without toxic chemicals, using responsibly-harvested wood pulp from renewable forests for cellulosic fibres, or producing wool by regenerative agriculture that prioritises healthy soil.
  • Once the materials are sourced, there are many ways to reduce production waste at the design stage, including:
    • Zero-waste design (this technique eliminates fabric waste during pattern planning, for example the Make/Use System developed by designer and researcher Holly McQuillan);
    • Creating virtual 3D clothing models to enable virtual sampling and fitting, reducing production waste.
  • Brands and suppliers are also working to reduce water and energy consumption, and minimise manufacturing pollution and waste. Current innovations include:
  • At the retail and distribution stage, brands are reducing energy consumption during transport by rethinking their logistics, and switching to renewable energy in their retail stores.

Creating fashion’s circular economy: keeping products in use

  • Increasing the number of times that clothes are worn is the simplest way of “designing out” fashion waste and pollution.
  • Innovative brands are increasing the length of time we wear our clothes through new business models that keep them in use for longer or increase the number of people who wear each item. The following are examples of circular business models:
    • Repair: Good quality clothing is often discarded when one part is damaged through wear and tear, e.g. a button falling off or faulty zip. By offering repair services, brands can help consumers use their clothes for longer. For example, Nudie Jeans offers lifetime free repairs on their jeans and sends “repair kits” to help customers perform simple mending at home.
    • Resale: Many unwanted clothes are often in perfectly good condition. Resale, also known as “secondhand”, “pre-loved” or “thrift”, means collecting unwanted used clothing and selling it to a different consumer to enjoy – usually at a cheaper price. For example, Patagonia’s “Worn Wear” platform and The North Face Renewed. collect and sell used clothing from their respective brands. There are also independent platforms like ThredUP, Vestiaire Collective, Retykle and HULA that re-sell used clothes from multiple brands. Resale benefits the environment twice; saving unwanted clothing from landfill and re-directing the purchaser from buying new, thereby saving the natural resources that would have gone into making new clothes.
    • Rental: Sometimes we only need clothes for a special occasion like a school dance or wedding, or for a short length of time like for fast-growing babies or infrequent ski trips. Rather than buying clothes to use for such a short period, some businesses are offering rental services so that multiple customers can wear the same item of clothing, but only when they need it. Examples include Danish company Vigga, which offers short-term baby clothes rental, with five different owners using them before the clothes are eventually recycled, or Hong Kong-based Pret-a-Dress.
    • Subscription rental: Subscription rental is a new model where customers pay a monthly fee to rent, wear, then return a number of garments – a bit like a library. This model is aimed at people who enjoy changing their look regularly without needing to buy new clothes. Some examples include Le Tote, Rent the Runway and Y Closet.
    • Takeback programmes: A “takeback programme” is when brands collect unwanted clothes from their customers in store or by post, with the aim of keeping those clothes in use and saving them from landfill. Brands usually work with third-party organisations to arrange collection and redistribution of the clothes for resale, re-use or recycling, for example, Gap Hong Kong’s takeback programme with Redress.
  • As these business models rely on clothes being repeatedly re-used, brands also need to make sure they are designing clothes that are:
    • Durable enough for many uses;
    • Timeless enough to avoid falling out of fashion quickly;
    • Multi-functional enough to extend their use, for example being trans-seasonal or suitable for both work and leisure.

Creating fashion’s circular economy: recycling

  • Repairing or re-using clothes is usually better for the environment than recycling them, because recycling uses additional energy and resources.
  • However, not everything can be repaired or re-used; sometimes clothes are too broken, or difficult to re-use, like swimwear or underwear. In those situations, recycling is still more sustainable than sending clothes to landfill.
  • Textile recycling is currently low compared to other industries. For example, in Hong Kong, the recycling rates are 39.1% for paper and 3.6% for plastic, but only 0.4% for textiles.
  • Most “recycled” clothing you see in shops today isn’t recycled from textiles, but from items like recycled plastic bottles. Worldwide, 87% of materials used in clothing production go to landfill or are incinerated after use, with less than 1% recycled to produce new clothing.
  • At present there are three different ways to perform textile fibre recycling: mechanical recycling, chemical recycling and biological recycling.
  • Mechanical recycling is the most common form of fibre recycling today. It involves mechanically shredding the fabrics and separating it into fibres. It has several challenges:
    • The “output” recycled fibres are often low quality, making them unsuitable for clothing. Most recycled textile fibres are used for insulation, often in buildings and cars. If used in clothing, they are mixed with new “virgin” fibres to make them strong enough.
    • Mechanical recycling facilities usually can’t process commonly-used mixed fibres like polyester/elastane, polyester/cotton, and cotton/elastane.
    • This also means it is important to know what materials the clothes are made of, making missing garment labels problematic.
    • Most clothing has trims, accessories and fastenings like zips, buttons, beads, sequins or metal rivets on jeans pockets. These can’t be recycled, and are slow and difficult to remove. Consequently, large amounts of clothing is lost through their removal and ends up incinerated or in landfill.
    • Clothes processing and sorting at recycling facilities is still mostly done by hand.
    • Retrieving clothes for recycling is challenging. Our current business models mean that brands have no control over their clothes once they’ve left the store.
  • To increase the quantity and quality of textile recycling, companies worldwide are working on innovative new chemical and biological recycling technologies.
  • These technologies can separate mixed fibres and convert old garments into new fibres that are of good enough quality to be used in new clothing – essentially, making new clothes from old! Some examples of these technologies include:
  • Emerging technologies are also helping to make clothes recycling more efficient, for example:
    • Wear2 yarn dissolves at high temperatures, making it easier to remove trims and fastenings before recycling;
    • RFID tracking technology can be integrated into clothing to help recyclers automatically identify what materials the clothes are made of, even without garment labels.
  • These technologies could revolutionise the fashion industry and reduce the use of new resources. However, most of these technologies are still in research and development or pilot phases and have not been applied at scale.
  • It’s also worth remembering that recycling alone cannot fix all of the problems. Even if we master garment recycling, we still need to break our habit of producing and consuming too many clothes.

Creating fashion’s circular economy: upcycling

  • Upcycling is a design technique where old textiles are re-used to create new products that are of equal, or even higher, value than the original product.
  • For example, using the material from old jeans and redesigning it into a denim skirt, or using the material from old T-shirts and turning it into T-shirt yarn, that can then be knitted into rugs or scarves.
  • Examples of brands using upcycling methods include:
    • A collaboration between Hong Kong designer Jesse Lee, Levis® and Hong Kong upcycling brand The R Collective to upcycle Levis® denim samples into a new collection of jeans, skirts and jackets;
    • Dutch brand Wintervacht, which upcycles blankets into jackets;
    • Hong Kong designer Janko Lam, who upcycles unwanted fabrics into modern Cheongsams under the brand Classics Anew;
    • Patagonia’s “ReCrafted” collection, where unrepairable Patagonia clothes are upcycled into new garments;
    • FREITAG, which makes bags and accessories from upcycled truck tarp and seatbelts;
    • Bemz, which makes furniture covers from upcycled garments;
    • Better World Fashion, who make upcycled leather jackets and bags from used leather products (and also use a leasing and takeback model to extend the life of their garments).
  • Upcycling can be hard to produce large-scale due to the nonuniformity and limited availability of raw materials to feed into the design and making process.
  • For example, a brand might use the leftover fabrics of another brand to create a range of upcycled jackets, which limits the quantity, colour, and type of fabrics that the brand could access.
  • As a result, brands using this method are often smaller, boutique companies, and collections are usually of a limited range. (But remember, we learnt in Module 1 that clothes were not always produced in large scale!)

Fix up, look sharp: looking out for “greenwashing”

  • While it’s definitely encouraging to see brands responding to consumer demands for sustainability, it can sometimes be hard to know what “sustainable fashion” means, and whether certain brands are legitimately making a difference.
  • Greenwashing is when a company says it is doing more for the environment and/or people than it actually is – for example, when brands use words such as “green”, “environmentally friendly”, “eco-friendly”, “eco-conscious”, “sustainable”, or “natural” in their marketing, but cannot back up their claims with hard facts or data.
  • Another example is where brands do a small amount of “good” somewhere, but create far more negative impacts elsewhere.
  • We should be cautious about taking a brand’s marketing at face value – we need to do our own research too, finding solid information that supports a brand’s claims. Try looking for more details on clothing labels and brands’ sustainability reports and websites, look for environmental certifications, or message the brand via email or social media. You can also use third-party reports and tools, such as Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Transparency Index and GoodOnYou, which compare and rate brands according to their sustainability.

Individual Actions

In this module, we’ve learned that the scale of textile waste in fashion calls for industry-wide change, and have explored how brands and industry insiders are innovating to create circular business models. The story doesn’t end there though – we can show brands that we actively want positive change too, by supporting these initiatives alongside other business models like secondhand, upcycled or rental fashion. As fashion consumers, we need to play our part in reducing waste and pollution. We can achieve this by buying fewer clothes and keeping those that we do buy in use for as long as possible.

Here are some of the top positive actions we can take to support the circular economy:

Before buying new, first consider buying secondhand or swapping clothes. Wearing pre-loved clothes helps the environment twice over: firstly, you give clothes that might otherwise end up in landfill a new life, and secondly you reduce the need to produce new clothing, which uses up precious resources. Try to borrow from friends or family, swap unwanted clothes with friends, buy pre-loved, or even make your own clothes.

Caring for your clothes extends their life. Read care labels so you know how to wash them correctly, attend to stains quickly, and mend missing buttons, small holes and torn seams. There are lots of easy YouTube videos that teach the skills you need to keep wearing your favourite clothes for longer!

If you grow out of your clothes or simply don’t like them anymore, give them a new life and avoid sending them to landfill by giving, swapping or selling them to a new owner; otherwise, wash then donate them to a charity who will redistribute them to people in need. Re-using and re-gifting clothes delays their disposal and means that the person receiving them doesn’t buy new, avoiding the unnecessary use of resources and materials. Remember, one man’s trash is another’s treasure!

Rethink your shopping habits. Be mindful of how many items you buy, your relationship with your clothes, and their relationship with the earth. Ask questions about how and where your clothes were made. Get to know the brands you support by visiting their websites; do they provide information about their social and environmental commitments? If not, ask them for it via email or social media. Tell them why you want to know; the more people who take time to contact brands, the more likely it is that they will take notice – and perhaps inspire them to make changes for the better. Choose to support brands that are truly committed to reducing their environmental impact.

Don’t underestimate the difference you can make – if we all made just a few small adjustments to our attitudes and behaviour, think how much of an impact our positive actions could have on the whole world!

Join Redress’ Get Redressed Month and shine a spotlight on clothing waste at your school! Our Get Redressed Month School Activity Pack has loads of great tips on how to run a pop-up second-hand shop, a clothing drive or a Get Redressed Day at your school – so now’s the time to get involved!

IS THERE A MORE SUSTAINABLE CLOTHING PRODUCTION PROCESS?

Almost everyone owns at least one pair of jeans – but what impact does it have on the world? Our Jeans and the Planet is an interactive website that helps explain the process of how jeans are made, the impact this has on the environment and the inspiring, innovative new technologies that are making fashion more sustainable than ever!

Other Learning Modules

1

More, more, more
Overproduction, overconsumption & fast fashion business models

Key Learning Areas

Exploring overproduction and overconsumption in fashion and understanding how business models, marketing, low prices, online shopping and social media encourage us to buy more.

2

Fashion’s dirty secret
Clothing pollution & textile waste

Key Learning Areas

Learning about pollution and waste in clothing manufacturing, and how this impacts people and our planet.

EDU

For educators
Ideas to incorporate circular fashion into your teaching

Key Learning Areas

Access our rich library of teacher guidelines and student activity ideas to bring circular fashion into your classroom.

 
 

About Redress

Redress is a pioneering Hong Kong based environmental charity with a mission to educate and empower the fashion industry and consumers to reduce clothing’s negative environmental impact by shifting to circular solutions. Our education programme focuses on educating consumers in Hong Kong of all ages about their fashion footprint and empowering them to drive change through circular solutions like buying more responsibly, donating clothes for reuse, or shopping secondhand.

About the ECF Circular Fashion Education Toolkit

This bilingual education toolkit including a handful of student and teacher resources is funded by the Environment and Conservation Fund and the Environmental Campaign Committee. It was designed in consultation with teachers and curriculum advisors from the English Schools Foundation, the Education Bureau of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and our wider network of Hong Kong schools, who provided invaluable guidance, support and feedback.