Out of style: Australia’s fashion waste needs a makeover

It’s official: Australians are the biggest addicts of fast fashion in the world.

On average, we buy a whopping 56 pieces of clothing each year, beating out Americans who buy 53 pieces, the Brits who bring home 33 items in shopping bags, and the Chinese who shop for 30 new garments.

But how do all these items fit into the closet? They don’t — we send 2.25 million tonnes of unwanted garments each year straight to landfill, an environmental crisis caused by textile waste.

While recycling efforts are underway, most of these new clothes cannot be recycled because of the polyester and elastane fibres used in their production. 

We’re crying out for a solution now, not in several years when technology can finally catch up to another of our self-inflicted fashion dilemmas.

So what’s on the table to tackle the waste fashion creates? The government has proposed a new tax — 4 cents to be added to each garment — via the national stewardship program Seamless, and effectively put the clothing industry on notice that harsher penalties could be on the horizon.