Textile Reuse

Wasted resources

Most mass-produced clothing and textiles require a huge amount of human and natural resources to produce. It is estimated that making just 1kg of fabric generates an average of 23kg of greenhouse gas emissions.1 Around 70% of fashion’s GHG emissions arise during raw material production, processing and manufacturing.2 When we discard these materials, we lose all of the embodied energy that has gone into making them.

Landfill

When breaking down in landfill, the natural materials in textiles give off methane and CO2– two greenhouse gases which are the main contributors to global warming because they trap heat in the atmosphere.3 Meanwhile, the synthetic fibres in our clothes such as polyester, spandex and nylon will not break down, but may take between 20 – 200 years to break up.4

Decomposing waste in landfill also releases a liquid called leachate, which seeps into the surrounding ground or groundwater. Due to the vast number of chemicals involved in the manufacture of clothing, this leachate will include a cocktail of chemicals, from dyes to fabric treatments such as water or stain repellency. Newer landfill sites have systems to capture this leachate, but older, unlined sites still release it.5

Besides both of these issues, textile waste also takes up a lot of space in landfill. This would not be necessary if other routes to reuse or recycling could be found.

Incineration

Incineration, another way to dispose of unwanted textiles, releases harmful substances including dioxins, heavy metals including cadmium and mercury, dust particles and acid gases such as sulphur dioxide and hydrochloric acid, all of which can be harmful to human health. They also release CO2 when burning fossil fuel-based waste such as plastic.6

Waste colonialism

A significant amount of the clothing donated to charities and waste sorting facilities here in the UK end up in the global south, where they create an enormous and unjust burden for local people. They overwhelm landfills, pile up on beaches, in the desert and in the ocean, and harm the trade of local secondhand clothing sellers or upcyclers, due to their low resale value and the poor quality of the materials. See the impact this is having in Ghana and Chile.

We think it’s vital that we tackle our own textile waste here in the UK, by finding routes to repair, reuse and upcycle it, so that it gets to live as many more lives as possible before being recycled.

At Stitched Up, we focus on finding routes for the reuse of textiles and sewing supplies.

For more than a decade, we have been diverting textile waste from landfill and making it available for creative reuse. Our customers can buy reclaimed materials and craft supplies at our regular Yard Sales, and we also use them in our workshops and community projects, where we bring people together to socialise and learn new life skills.

We are a not-for-profit Community Benefit Society, and as such, any profits we make are reinvested for the benefit of the community.

By donating fabrics to us, not only are you keeping textiles out of landfill, but you are also helping to support our community activities, all of which aim to inspire local people to take action on sustainable fashion, in whatever way they can. In recent years, these activities have included; our free repair cafe, film club, free and subsidised youth and wellbeing craft sessions and outreach activities.

We do make a small charge for certain donations. This is a contribution towards our time to process your donations and the cost of recycling any that are unusable.

Taking reuse further – Shred Up

In an extension of our textile reuse and recycling work, we’re currently working on a new project called Shred Up – a community-driven project looking into the uses and economic viability of shredded, post-consumer textile waste as a local textile waste solution. Find out more about the project and how you can get involved here.