Fashion retailers aim to reduce landfill waste

Fashion retailers throughout the UK have joined forces in a bid to reduce the amount of textile waste that makes its way to landfill each year. Big retailers within Britain are to agree to reduce the waste, carbon and water impact of their clothes by 15 per cent by 2020. 

The new target is to reduce the amount of clothes that end up thrown away by 350,000 tonnes, while also reducing the size of the UK's landfills. Next, Tesco, Marks and Spencer and Arcadia are set to agree on the target and work towards reducing their carbon footprint and the impact of thrown-away clothes on the environment.

As part of the Love Your Clothes campaign, retailers will help customers see how they can extend the life of clothes that are already in their wardrobe. This could reduce the amount of clothes that remain unused, before ultimately being thrown away. 

According to research performed by the campaign, around £30 billion worth of clothes that haven't be worn in the last 12 months are being kept within British homes, with another £1,700 being spent by the average household on clothes each year. This penchant for so regularly buying new clothing increases the likelihood of wearable items being sent to landfill.

Liz Goodwin, chief executive of Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), said: "Clothes cost money. Not getting the most out of them by mixing and matching garments, repairing favoured items, selling them on, or giving to charity shops means we're not getting the most out of that hard earned money, and wasting scarce resources."

WRAP has estimated that the businesses that have signed up to the initiative account for around 40 per cent of retailers within the UK. This means that there is likely to be a vast reduction in the amount of usable textile material being sent to landfill. Carbon emissions could also be reduced throughout Britain's fashion sector, as could water usage.