A circular economy aims to ensure products or goods remain in circulation as long as possible. Alternatively, we need to return the basic resources used to make the products to the planet so that they can be regenerated and replenished.
Let’s take clothes. The obvious choice would be to keep them in circulation as long as possible. That would mean facilitating the exchange of used clothing items. It could also mean repairing services to fix any wear and tear. It could also mean renting clothes, so we are not forced to keep them beyond our needs. So, this would likely require new business models or services.
Ultimately, at some point in time, that clothing will inevitably reach an end-of-life phase. So, how do you recycle clothes? According to a recent Washington Post article, only an eighth of the 92 million tons of clothes we produce get recycled. And most of the recycled clothes, according to the article, are seldom used for new clothing.
But what if we can repurpose clothes? If there was a modular way to decompose them into different parts, such as buttons, hoods, or detachable pockets, that can be used in other garments, this would likely require a design rethink—designing with modularity in mind. This concept referred to ZeroWaste fashion, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/style/world-class-lessons-ons-on-zero-waste.html has picked up in several parts of the world.
Another approach would be to use fabrics that are easier to recycle, such as cotton. Cotton as a crop requires enormous amounts of water. It is often produced in regions like India where water remains a precious resource. Consider this mind-boggling fact - producing 2 pounds of cotton requires nearly 6,000 gallons of water! The other issue is that cotton fibers get increasingly weaker as they get recycled, making them difficult to use again for their initial purpose, such as new clothing.
Thus, new types of textile materials need to be developed that can be kept in circulation in perpetuity without losing their strength. This, when combined with other aspects such as renting, repairing, modularity, and repurposing, will enable us to reach a stable state of an almost finite amount of clothing in circulation.
References:
Rivero, N. (2024, July 5). Why scientists think they may finally have found a way to recycle clothes. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/07/05/fast-fashion-clothing-waste-recycling/
Leahy, S. (2015, March 20). World Water Day: the cost of cotton in water-challenged India. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/20/cost-cotton-water-challenged-india-world-water-day
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