October 2024

The fashion industry says it cannot fix the massive problems it is facing alone, but getting the ear of the government is proving tricky.

Half a tonne of unwanted clothes dumped in the middle of a fashion event in Auckland this week is the brutal symbol of the crisis hanging over the industry.

More brutal is the fact that this half-tonne is sent to landfills in New Zealand every five minutes.

The pile was on display at the annual Circular Fashion Awards, run by the non-profit clothing and textiles collective Mindful Fashion. It aims to highlight the environmental damage caused by fast fashion and show off the work of designers, newcomers and veterans, who have come up with ways to reuse materials that would otherwise end up in our landfills.

According to a Threads of Tomorrow report on the value of the local fashion industry, over the last 20 years clothing consumption has soared by 60 percent with items kept only half as long as they were two decades ago.

The awards night brings attention to the growing issue but Juliette Hogan, the chair of Mindful Fashion and a leading designer, says government ministers have been slow or unwilling to respond.

"We want the government to sit down and have a conversation with us about how we might work together to ensure that the right decisions are being made and the right steps are put into place to caretake both this industry and the textile waste problem that we will be experiencing over the coming years.

We need legislation and policy put in place so that we can ensure that all businesses that contribute to this industry are taking responsibility for what needs to happen."

Read more at RNZ: The Detail