Wasted by Byron Reese & Scott Hoffman

Author:Byron Reese & Scott Hoffman [Reese, Byron & Hoffman, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

If You Don’t Like It, Just…Return It

Given that clothing is something everyone needs, the fact that in an $80 trillion world economy we only spend 3¢ out of every dollar on clothes seems low, particularly since fashion is an important element of popular culture.

On a per capita basis, that means that we spend about $300 per person per year on clothing. Of course, that number is a bit misleading; those in richer countries spend vastly more than those in the developing world. In the wealthy West, people buy so much clothing that the amount purchased annually but never actually worn is more than the $300 average.

Clothing consumption is driven by low costs and rapidly changing tastes. We think little of purchasing new clothes, then purchasing more when the last batch no longer suits our fancy.

This view of what we wear as disposable is new. At most times in history, people were stuck with the clothes they had for much longer than a season. This is why, for instance, the progression of belts signifying skill level in karate goes from light to dark, so that as the student advances they could redye the same belt in ever-darker shades.

Even today, men’s dress shirts often feature collars and cuffs in a different color from the rest of the shirt, recalling an earlier time when men would have those parts of shirts replaced when they became soiled and worn, saving the rest of the garment in the process.

Previous generations’ frugality in attire can be seen even more clearly in a legendary, and entirely true, story from the 1920s. At that time Asa T. Bales noticed that women were repurposing the cotton bags that animal feed was packaged in to make clothes. He patented the idea of printing patterns on those fabrics as a kind of differentiator for feed manufacturers, and feed sack dresses are commonly seen in reports of clothes from the era.

Contrast this previous expense and scarcity with practices in the modern clothing industry, and you can see that there’s been an explosion in waste. Readers may recall the controversy from 2013 when a manager at fashion-forward retailer Abercrombie and Fitch said that they burned remaindered and irregular inventory rather than donating it to the needy, implying that the company’s brand would be harmed if poor people were seen wearing the clothes. Today Abercrombie’s website says that the company has since “partnered with World Vision, a global humanitarian organization that provides clothing to families and children in need around the world. We donate as much as we can, but like many retailers, there are certain goods we cannot give away due to regulations and damages.”

Abercrombie is certainly not alone in being concerned about who might end up wearing its castoffs; maintaining exclusivity can be something of an obsession for premium brands. A piece in The Sunday Times reported that luxury retailer Burberry had burned more than $100 million worth of its own goods over the past five years. As the article notes,

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