The fashion industry has a very well-known waste problem.
The multi-trillion dollar fashion industry contributes significant greenhouse gas emissions, between 8% to 10% of, according to the United Nations. That is more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. And as other industries make progress on carbon reduction solutions, fashion's carbon footprint is forecast to grow — it is predicted to account for over 25% of the world's global carbon budget by 2050.
"You would have to decouple five intimately blended fibers and send them to five different recycling scenarios in order to recover most sweaters," said Paul Dillinger, head of global product innovation atThe complexity of the fashion recycling problem is behind new business models that have emerged at companies including Evrnu, Renewcell, Spinnova, and SuperCircle, and some big new commercial operations.
Textile waste, by some measures, is a bigger issue than plastics waste, and it has a similar problem.