1. Waste in Fashion

2. Our clothes are getting cheaper, they follow fashion more rapidly and were buying more and more of them. At the same time we hear more about poor working conditions in textiles factories, the growing threat of the greenhouse effect and the UK facing a crisis in disposing of its waste. What do you know about waste in the fashion industry?

3. a) $1million b) $1trillion c) $1billion Question 1: How much do the worlds consumers spend on fashion and textiles each year?

4. Answer: C. $1trillion

5. Question 2 : How much of the UKs textiles and clothing is actually manufactured (made) in Britain? a. 25% b. 75% c. 20%

6. Answer: C. 20%... thats only a fifth!

7. Question 3: We export 281 thousand tonnes of textile products to the global market each year. But how much do we import? a) More b) Less c) The same

8. Answer: A The UK imports a whopping 1,700 thousand tonnes of clothing annually. Thats more than 6 times more than we export!

9. FACT: In 2004 the UK imported approximately 460 million T-shirts… thats over seven each. This statistic gets even scarier when you realise that each t-shirt has probably been in 3 different countries during its production – the air miles alone are staggering!

10. Question 3: How much water do you think is wasted through the clothes and textiles industry each year in the UK? a) 70 million tonnes b) 100 million tonnes c) 10 million tonnes

11. Answer: C The UK fashion & textile industry wastes 70 million tonnes of water, with a further 90 million tonnes of water used in the production process. In addition to this the industry is responsible for 3.1 million tonnes of CO2 (carbon) emissions and 1.5 million tonnes of solid waste in the form of discarded and unused threads, fabrics and clothes.

12. Consumers in the UK spend about £780 per head on clothing per year, purchasing around 2.15 million tonnes (thats the equivalent of more than 10,000 Angel of the North sculptures - weighing 200 tonnes each!)

13. Question 4: How much of this do you think gets given to charities? a. 12.5% - an eighth b. 33% - a third c. 50% - half

14. Answer: A Only a measly 1/8 of our reusable textiles and clothing gets given to charities*… UNCHARITABLE?! * Source: http://www.ifm.eng.ca m.ac.uk/sustainability/ projects/mass/UK_texti les.pdf

15. Question 5: So what happens to the rest of it? a) People get creative and make their own clothes or curtains? b) It is recycled by local councils? c) It gets disposed of in landfills?

16. Answer: C 74% gets disposed of in LANDFILLS. ITS THROWN AWAY! Thats 30kg per person- or 120 t-shirts each!

17. So think: how wasteful are you?