Thanks to the rise of fast fashion, textiles waste in the UK has been sharply increasing in recent years.
But now high street names like M&S, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have set ambitious sustainable cotton targets.

Retailers and brands are focusing on a number of priority garments which have been identified as having the highest environmental costs in terms of manufacture and which sell in the largest numbers.

Top of the list are women’s dresses, jumpers and jeans, followed by men’s T-shirts and jumpers. Women’s jeans have been singled out in terms of the amount of water used during their production while dresses and jumpers and men’s T-shirts are similarly high volume products which require work to tackle their carbon footprint and supply chain waste.

The amount of clothing in household residual waste has decreased since 2012, falling by 50,000 tons in the household waste stream. This is a fall of 14 per cent and represents the equivalent weight of more than 300 jumbo jets.

Reuse and recycling signatories are helping divert an increasing amount of clothing away from landfill at end of life.

But though fewer clothes are ending up in residual waste, clothing purchases have risen over the last five years. This is due to relatively low prices and the increased population.