{"id":14931,"date":"2019-08-30T11:36:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T10:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/?p=14931"},"modified":"2019-08-30T11:36:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T10:36:01","slug":"eleven-million-pieces-of-clothing-end-up-in-landfill-each-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/eleven-million-pieces-of-clothing-end-up-in-landfill-each-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Eleven million pieces of clothing end up in landfill each week"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than two tonnes of clothing are bought in the UK each minute according to a study by Oxfam. Oxfam estimates that each week 11 million pieces of clothing end up in the landfill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Oxfam’s chief executive Danny Sriskandarajah said:<\/strong> “These staggering facts about fashion’s impact on the planet and the world’s poorest people should make us all think twice before buying something new to wear.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We are in a climate emergency – we can no longer turn a blind eye to the emissions produced by new clothes or turn our backs on garment workers paid a pittance who are unable to earn their way out of poverty no matter how many hours they work.<\/span><\/p>\n

“As consumers, it’s in our power to make a real difference. Buying second-hand clothes helps to slow the ferocious fast fashion cycle, giving garments a second lease of life.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Oxfam study showed that people are buying cheap clothes, wearing them a few times then they will throw them away. In 2016 there was an estimated 1,130,000 tonnes of clothing which were bought in the UK, this is an increase of 565% in the four years prior.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an Oxfam survey of 1,000 Britons more than 50% were aware that fast fashion had a bad effect on the environment. Three in 10 were shocked at the extent to how fashion can damage the planet however, they would not change their shopping habits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fibres in clothing can pollute oceans and rivers which end up in our food chain. Also chemicals from cotton etc can be washed by rain polluting the oceans\/rivers when the cotton is growing. This can all impact the environment in a negative way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rachel Kelly co-founded the sustainable brand Thought said:<\/strong> “All our clothes are sustainable, our labels are 100% cotton, we’ve changed our plastic bags to biodegradable bags, and we’ve changed all of our glue to a vegan glue. We believe that at each step of the process you can improve and for minimal cost you can make a big difference.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We believe it makes business sense, we are an independently owned business we’re growing year on year in a really tough market place and we think we’ve made a really good business case for a sustainable lifestyle brand.<\/span><\/p>\n

“In the last 10 months the consumer knowledge has increased enormously and it seems it’s a cultural moment, a cultural shift in people’s perceptions that they want to shop more sustainably.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I think businesses will need to have a shift in how they want to produce their ranges and I think the consumer will lead the way by making different choices.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers have found that new clothes which are brought into the UK produce more carbon emissions per minutes than driving a car would.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than two tonnes of clothing are bought in the UK each minute according to a study by Oxfam. Oxfam estimates that each week 11 million pieces of clothing end up in the landfill.\u00a0 Oxfam’s chief executive Danny Sriskandarajah said: “These staggering facts about fashion’s impact on the planet and the world’s poorest people should…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":14932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1529,1504],"class_list":["post-14931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk-news","tag-clothing","tag-environment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14933,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14931\/revisions\/14933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}