FAST FASHION & SECOND HAND

The Greenwashing Tactic

The fast fashion stores have made clothing so affordable that it has lead to an overconsumption of unsustainable clothing, these are often discarded due to not being fashionable anymore.

The secondhand clothing market is rapidly growing, and it is estimated to be worth $84 billion by 2030, more than double the estimated worth of fast fashion for the same year. We have been seen big name brands jumping on the secondhand market by implementing their own secondhand marketplaces.

However, is fast fashion resale truly sustainable in a way that reflects the values of a circular practice? Or are these “new” markets simply a new way for profit?

It becomes problematic when the same brands that host these second-hand businesses use them primarily as a means to make more profit, maintaining their core linear models of overproduction rather than actually changing their business models to reflect the circular economy.

Secondhand initiatives are a means for big brands to gain even more profit while continuing the same exploitation models as before. These marginal secondhand marketplaces are an attempt by brands to get good press without having to do much. This is greenwashing at its best.

Some brands, like H&M in the beginning featured return bins in their stores, where customers could hand back their old garments and in exchange they get vouchers that provide discounts for purchasing more the brand’s clothing. These return ‘circularity’ schemes work as games to keep customers trapped in a cycle of consumption. Instead of slowing down clothing consumption, consumers are encouraged to buy more than ever.

A more pertinente question to be made about these fast fashion and big retails second hand clothes is:

Can you really recirculate poorly made fast fashion?

Because opposing to the benefit of resale luxury that is created with craftsmanship and higher quality materials, giving these items a longer life span, these clothes are mostly made with poor quality.

The second hand market is no way a solution to the waste generated from textile industry. From the ecological point of view, the solution to this problem is to find efective disposal technologies.

It is estimated that the textile recycling industry recycles approximately 1,9 billion tons of post-consumer textile waste each year, this only accounts for approximately 15% of all textile waste, leaving 85% in the landfills so that textile waste occupies nearly 5% of all landfill space.

In 2022, around 1.75m tonnes of clothing and textile waste was created in the UK with 1.2m tonnes of it ends up in landfill. The average item of clothing is only worn 10 times before being discarded.

Our personal thought is:

Opening a new market for second-hand parts only leads to increased consumption, there is no disruption in the cycle of buying and selling excessive for fast fashion companies and big retailers.

The lack of proper disposal technologies is the solution for this problem, and in Plain in Portugal we can proudly say that we already fight this issue by being part of the R5 project.

The desire to elevate the Circular Economy in the Portuguese textile industry united 5 players to bring us the possibility to upcycle the old clothing. Add value to your brand by implementing this transparent circular economy process, where the certifications, ethics and sustainability are a must.

Official sources:

“FAST FASHION AND SECOND HAND CLOTHES BETWEEN ECOLOGICAL CONCERNS AND GLOBAL BUSINESS” - retrieve from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304626238

https://remake.world/