Dani Baron, the owner of Cheaper Than Vinnies, says she’s experienced an incredible uptick in donations. Over and over again, she saw people creating waste from cheap, fast fashion to her store. Alarmingly, almost 50% of these donations are fast fashion. These donations are a turning tide burdening local op shops. Perhaps most troubling, the influx of such clothing overwhelms our stores. It contributes to the worsening environmental emergency, with Australia consuming more textiles per person than any other country.
Kelly, who volunteers at an op shop, discussed the service delivery and financial strains that these organizations are under. She noted that soiled, tattered, and threadbare garments often end up dropped off at their doorsteps. These influxes of sometimes largely unusable items impose exorbitant management costs on op shops as they try to deal with them. I fear you’ll get hit by our rubbish collection, and we do, because these poorly funded charitable foundations are stretched too thin to foot the bill.
A 2024 report by Scamell and Alison Hooper for the Australia Institute’s Textile Waste project has uncovered a shocking statistic. Australia is currently the highest consumer of textiles per capita in the world! This $400 billion statistic highlights the need for a change in consumer behavior from 60% food waste to eating what we buy. The report exposed a sobering statistic—more than 50% of clothing donated—over 220,000 tonnes per year—is sent to landfills. This disastrous circumstance is making the nation’s waste crisis much worse.
Through the Seamless Stewardship Scheme, we are making it simple to address that challenge. It does this by putting a 4-cent tax on each piece of clothing brought to Australia or made in Australia. Even with this commitment in place, the impacts of the fast fashion model are still felt far and wide. Dani Baron, of Fab Scrap, shared about how she can’t resell about 60% of her donations, like non-fabrics and fast fashions. Instead, she passes them on a second time to the bigger op shops.
Anuja Mukim of the St Vincent de Paul Society (Vinnies) estimated that “only 30%” of donations were good quality. There’s no dignity in giving folks old or used underwear, she said. The Vinnies recycling organization has to toss anything that’s wet or stained. These problems are usually the result of improper disposal. Clothing that’s cast aside and left outside to weather the elements accounts for a huge portion of Australia’s waste crisis. This cavalier attitude makes a serious environmental crime even worse.
Mukim added that the challenge of textile waste management in New South Wales was enormous. Every day, the workers there are responsible for processing an incredible 47,000 kilograms of textiles. According to Vinnies, the average person donates only 12.1 kilos of clothing annually. Sadly, just 16.5% of those items make it to the charity shop floor to be sold. Of the fabric not sold, 36% is recycled domestically, 14% goes to landfill and 33% are exported for resale.
Exported apparel often goes to places like the UAE and Malaysia. It makes stops in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Ghana, and Pakistan. In these regions, discarded materials are either recycled in secondary markets or become pollution and waste burdens. This issue comes into stark focus on the shores of Ghana, where fast fashion discards are an extreme environmental hazard.
Even in the face of these growing obstacles, there is hope on the horizon. Dr Harriette Richards is a senior lecturer at the School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University. She went on to share some interesting irony as it relates to younger consumers. One, they’re more aware of sustainability and ethical production practices. Yet, simultaneously, they are drawn in by the powerful allure of social media trends that drive demand for fast fashion. They’re wanting to be in touch with their friends, they’re wanting to keep up, they’re wanting to fit in,” she said.
Dr. Richards touched on the importance of a more intentional mindset when it comes to our clothing consumption. It isn’t just about throwing away your trash. It’s about providing a second chance to the things that have traveled with you,” she said. This feeling is similar to the larger movement urging consumers and donors to rethink how they buy and contribute.
Mukim emphasized the impact of fast fashion and what Vinnies is doing to be part of the solution. They’ve opened up outlet stores to provide a second life to the fast fashion items that come through their doors. Today, fast fashion has created a tsunami of cheap clothes that deluge the quality of donations we’re able to sell in stores. Instead, we are just now opening outlet stores,” she said.
The fight is far from over as these nonprofits battle with every last cent they have to recover more waste and stretch their limited resources. We hope that we can keep selling as many things as possible before they are condemned to landfills. We know that recycling, like all solutions that involve moving materials, is deeply energy-intensive and we are looking for more holistic solutions.” Mukim concluded.
Baron articulated her frustrations regarding the current state of donations: “So that gets quite a lot for me to handle in that way for sure.” She bemoaned how individuals don’t think about what they are throwing away and if it can be reused or repaired. It’s no longer acceptable that they don’t want it and they just toss it in the garbage. They can’t accept that and we got to move on from that,” she said.
Mukim argued that larger firms have been evading their responsibility to contribute. While these businesses are some of the largest corporations creating generally non-recyclable textile waste, they continue to evade responsibility for implementing sustainable practices. From the collective action of consumers to that of big organizations, we need to address these inequities to accelerate change and create a more sustainable future.
