Some people demonize fashion and retail as malicious vampires and destroyers of the environment but never realize their faults as consumers, or have no clue about what to do to make up for them. This is a dilemma for Hong Kong.
People remain oblivious to how polluting and disastrous the fashion business is because the repercussions are chronic, intangible and not immediately visible. The enormous volume of textile waste dumped into Hong Kong’s landfills each day is about 1.5 times the weight of the Big Buddha on Lantau Island — a 34-meter-tall bronze statue — according to a study by Redress, a Hong Kong charity group campaigning for sustainable consumption.
Globally, the United Nations has warned that by 2050, current lifestyles will require the equivalent of three planets’ worth of natural resources.
Most Hong Kong people would vote for a circular fashion industry, but would be unable to come up with ways to promote circularity.
Redress has launched a “Takeback Program” along with nine world-leading fashion brands, including Zara, Pull & Bear, Rue Madame and Tommy Hilfiger, to encourage consumers to put used or unwanted clothing in 38 collection boxes across Hong Kong.
Redress will sort and redistribute the collected clothing according to their condition and target users. Luxury garments — accounting for up to 10 percent of items collected — end up at Redress’ secondhand shops. About 75 to 80 percent of the clothes would be handed to charity groups, including Crossroads, the Refugee Union, the Young Women’s Christian Association, Po Leung Kuk, and PathFinders Hong Kong. Badly damaged, dirty or moldy clothing will be recycled or downcycled.
Sorting the items by hand and ensuring they can be reused and that they go to the right places is a demanding, laborious task. For example, items for children go to PathFinders, which is dedicated to supporting children with migrant mothers. Pet charity groups receive discarded blankets and throws.
Christina Dean, who founded Redress, said very few items are resold as they have to be in sound condition. “Besides, there are not enough charity shops and resale stores in Hong Kong,” she added.
Redress can sometimes secure a roomful of secondhand things, showing people are committed to reducing textile waste and prolonging the life of used items. But while some donors are consciously doing it for the environment, others are merely throwing away unwanted stuff to make more space in their wardrobes. While pinpointing the motivation of donors is difficult, “the first group (of people) is definitely expanding … globally and in Hong Kong, people are inarguably becoming more concerned about the environment and more aware of their role in morphing the polluting fashion business into a more-sustainable one”, Dean said.
Dean has recognized how people in Hong Kong and globally have interpreted fast fashion as wasteful and destructive in the past 14 years since Redress’ establishment. Fifteen years ago, people were just morally prodded into agreeing it was polluting the environment, but might not have consciously felt it, Dean recalled. Today, there is an onslaught of reports of water pollution, carbon emissions, diminished biodiversity, land erosion and microplastics, she said. These effects, brought about by fashion, are appalling statistics on how people’s squandering behavior has harmed ecosystems. “So you would have to be living under a rock not to know that fashion has a negative impact on the environment,” Dean said.
In recent years, fashion businesses have been seriously engaged in strategic sustainability practices, as opposed to merely engaging in a box-ticking exercise.
VF Corp — one of the world’s largest apparel, footwear and accessories companies — is leading the circular fashion dynamic. In 2018, North Face — a brand under VF — started VF’s first e-commerce platform. In its first year, the program saved more than 16.8 metric tons of apparel from landfills, allowing them to be reused by consumers. Last year, Timberland launched a rebottling campaign, using an innovative method to transform discarded plastic bottles into recycled polyester yarn to be reused in footwear production. By September, the equivalent of 380 million plastic bottles had been incorporated into Timberland’s footwear products.
Despite the positive shift, 170 tons of clothes head for Hong Kong’s landfills daily, Dean said. Textiles decompose in a landfill over some 200 years, during which toxic chemicals and dyes, methane and other greenhouse gases are generated.
There is nothing wrong with getting tired of used clothes, shopping to refresh one’s image and wardrobe, or going on a buying spree to kill boredom and unwind, Dean said. These comprise a desire embedded in every human being’s psychology that should be respected. “Let’s not fight it! But they can definitely do it in a more sustainable way.”
Fast fashion has buttressed the global economy and lends a thrill to people’s lives. “What we need to do is buy less, buy better and wear it longer,” she said.
A rule of thumb Dean offers is to “style your clothes and be more individual with that clothing”, finding neat hacks for wearing items more. “Varying accessories to go with the same outfit. Tweaking with the way the same outfit is worn. What we need to learn is to wear our current clothes differently and creatively,” Dean said.
Reinventing styles with the same clothing is not only sustainable and economical, but also liberating and fun. “It’s also much more meaningful,” Dean said. “I genuinely think that people who look both cool and fashionable are those who have actually put time into their wardrobes.”
A sustainable but equally fulfilling alternative to shopping is engaging in enjoyable experiences, she suggested. “Enroll in a course to learn a new skill, visit a museum or have a lovely dinner with your loved ones.” According to a 2014 article in the journal Psychological Science, we tend to value a joyous experience more than a piece of garment — a theory borne out by scientific studies. Experiential purchases bring more enduring happiness than material purchases because eager anticipation of an experience feeds into overall happiness.
The onus to sway consumers into making sustainability-informed wardrobe choices is partly on fashion designers. Incorporating sustainable solutions into design can directly influence consumers to re-examine their lifestyles.
Jessica Chang, who won the Redress Design Award 2021, feels obliged to experiment with environmentally friendly techniques, including zero-waste-patterning, dead-stock fabrics and upcycling. Conventionally, fabrics with inconsistent seams and hems cannot be harmoniously pieced together, resulting in much cutting and discarding. Roughly 15 percent of the fabric used in the fashion industry is wasted. With creative zero-waste design, pieces can be fit together seamlessly without leftover scraps.
Big factories normally order surplus fabrics, resulting in “dead stocks” — abundant leftovers sitting idle in warehouses. Chang said she will source and utilize those dead stocks in her designs and upgrade or upcycle secondhand clothing to create new design iterations. For example, in her acclaimed design, she used two worn sweaters from friends and chiffon fabric from a photo studio to make a combination of a jumpsuit and trench coat, boasting coziness and flaunting smart casual stylishness.
Chang makes the point of striking a balance between a chic silhouette and practicality. “If the design is not wearable (in real-life settings), it’s unsustainable. So I would always focus on designs that are accessible to everyone.”
Technology’s disruptive effect on noncircular fashion cannot be overlooked. “Thanks to technology, all polyesters now can be made of recycled water bottles,” Chang said. “So we have no excuse to make new polyesters.” The material, a common ingredient in the fashion industry, has been found detrimental to the environment, releasing toxic chemicals into the water and the air, and taking hundreds of years to biodegrade.
“How the clothing is constructed also matters,” Chang added. For example, seams easily ripped apart are more likely thrown away.
The industry has also looked to Mother Nature for solutions to circularity. Weaving coffee grounds into fabrics eliminates odor, sparing clothing repeated washes and, consequently, wear and tear; making leather from pineapple-leaf fiber is sustainable and humane; eco-friendly spray makes clothing water-repellent; and blending ground oyster shells into fabrics gives clothing ultraviolet protection. These are just the tip of the iceberg, showing that technology empowers and supports the industry’s zero-waste and circular bid.
Chang is disappointed that while consumers and producers are no longer ignorant of the insidious nature of fashion, there remains latency in action. “I’ve always been struggling to accept the fact that the sustainability movement started too late.”
Education in schools can expose young cohorts to the envisioned circular future they are expected to sculpt. Before sustainability studies become an independent discipline at Hong Kong’s universities, professional associations across all industries must ensure sustainability recognition, said Chris Lo, associate professor of fashion retail and marketing at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Lo, who teaches sustainability in fashion and textiles, is concerned most of his students feel hard-pressed to carry sustainability certificates for their careers because not every company dedicates resources to corporate sustainability management.
Making fashion sustainable and circular is no mean feat, as it would take multiple stakeholders — fashion designers, brands, educators, scientists, technology developers and consumers — to forge together toward the holy grail.
The first step toward change is awareness. Since awareness is here, there is reason to anticipate the change.
