Achieving Sustainability through Zero Waste Fashion-A Review

Abstract

Fashion industry encompasses every stage of production, starting from production of fibres, fabric, designing, production and sale of garments. Fashion industry holds second place among the pollution causing industries. This industry has an enormous impact on the environment as well as on the millions of people working in it. During the course of production of garments, a substantial amount of waste is generated. Solid waste, thus produced is sent to landfills, where it decomposes and leads to production of methane gas. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that traps atmospheric heat more effectively than the most common greenhouse gas—carbon dioxide. The solid waste contributes significantly to the existing problem of global warming. The increase in population and increased consumption of products in the developed world has started the global waste problem. Fast fashion provides the marketplace with affordable apparel. Fashion magazines create the desire for new “must-haves” for each season. But fast fashion has its side effects in the form of pollution footprint. The rate at which the clothing waste is generated is far more than its rate of decomposition. Millions of tons of clothing waste is dumped in landfills, which may take between one to five months to fully biodegrade, with the condition that the waste comprises only of organic cotton fabrics. The waste generated is a mixture of natural as well as synthetic fibre, with 20 to 200 years of decomposition time. Each chemical treatment elongates its biodegradation time. A viable solution to this problem may be the adoption of every technique resulting in lower waste generation. Zero waste Fashion may be a step towards achievement of sustainability. A Zero waste policy must be adopted to identify inefficiencies in the use of inputs like raw materials, power and workforce. Zero waste policy supports every phase of the sustainability movement. This paper is centered on the main causes of waste generation in garment industry and the Zero waste generation techniques of garment production and other means of waste reduction which can be adopted to make the fashion industry sustainable.