Environmental impacts of the clothing industry
The manufacture of polyester and other synthetic fabrics for clothing is an energy-intensive process that requires large amounts of crude oil and releases many pollutants into the air and water.
Egytex News Desk
Source: Post Bulletin
Growing cotton, one of the most popular fibers used in clothing manufacture, accounts for a quarter of all the pesticides used in the United States, according to the USDA.
Apparel manufacturing in most countries offer low wages and poor conditions for workers. According to figures from the U.S. National Labor Committee, Chinese apparel workers make as little as 12-18 cents per hour working in poor conditions.
According to the EPA Office of Solid Waste, Americans throw away more than 68 pounds of clothing and textiles per person per year.
The Council for Textile Recycling estimates that 2.5 billion pounds of post-consumer textile waste is collected for reuse or recycling, but this represents only about 15 percent of the clothing that is discarded in the U.S. each year.
Source: "Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry" and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Source: Post Bulletin
From the Egytex news archive, first published on 1 April 2009. Figures and names are as reported at the time.
