How fast fashion adds to the world's clothing waste problem (Marketplace)

This is "Marketplace."

Whoa.

Pajamas, old dresses.

Oh, my gosh!

Where do all your old clothes
really end up?

Ultimately, it is going
to end up in a landfill.

We follow the trail around the world.

The high cost of fast fashion.

This is your "Marketplace."

I'm here checking out some of
the biggest fashion chains in the world,

but I'm not shopping for new clothes.

I'm actually trying to get rid of
some of my old ones.

So these are my all-time favorite
sweatpants from college.

These, I washed them
and they totally shrunk.

These were also super cheap.

This is just like an old T-shirt.

It was black at one point in its life.

Some retailers are on a mission.

They want your unwanted clothes,

and some are competing
with charities for it.

There's a new bin in town and
the message is clear:

Don't throw old clothes in the garbage,

dump them here.

They'll take curtains, they'll take jeans.

They'll even take your old underwear.

Drop off old clothes and get a coupon

to save money when you buy new ones.

But before I part with my old clothes,

I've got a few more questions.

These bins sure make us all feel good.

But are they doing as much good
as we think?

Look at this!

Look at these bags!

Most of us are like
the Bretons and the Palmas

in Markham, Ontario.

Somehow, we end up with too many clothes.

Emily, what's in here?

Old clothes that are too small for me.

They purge a few times a year,

normally dropping their
haul in a charity bin.

Whoa!

Stuff like these have holes in them.

This isn't just a pile of clothes.

It's now a pile of textile waste.

And we want to show the kids
just how big the problem really is.

Are you guys ready to go inside

and see what happens to all
those clothes that you donate?

Yes

All right. Let's go inside.

Go on in, take a look.

Whoa!

Clothes! Clothes!

That's clothes.

Do you see that?

Oh, my gosh.

Clothes!

That's a crazy pile.

And get this, all of this
is what's leftover,

the stuff no one wants.

The stuff that thrift stores can't sell.

All those clothes you guys
piled up yesterday,

this is where it can end up.

It's a lot of clothes.

It wasn't what I was expecting to see.

One warehouse,

more than 200,000 pounds
of textile waste each week.

And that's just from in
and around Toronto.

Across the country,
we've got nine other locations

similar to this one.

The last year or two years,
probably a 15 to 20% growth

in the overall volume of textiles
that are coming in.

Tonny Colyn is the head of donations
for Salvation Army Canada.

So, how do you think fast
fashion has impacted...this?

All of this.

It's had a massive effect.

And all of that stuff has to go somewhere.

The dads of these two families,

Michael Palma and Norman Breton
can't believe it.

Their coats or boots might be okay,
but they want something new.

If they need or if they want,
it's a big question.

A lot of times they want stuff
but they don't need it.

Still, we can't seem to get our hands
on fast fashion fast enough.

Cheap, trendy, disposable clothes.

And we're even bragging about it.

And I ended up with a bag full of clothes.

We're all buying too much,
400% more, since the 1980's.

The quality isn't all that great,
but the prices are fantastic.

But not all of our old clothes
make it to the donation bin.

Most of it, 85%, ends up in landfills.

In North America, it's estimated to be
at least 25 billion pounds a year.

In Canada alone, imagine a mountain

three times the size of
Toronto's Rogers Centre Stadium

Where they don't biodegrade easily

because many are made with fabrics
that can't be broken down.

Releasing chemicals and dyes
into our rivers, soil.

That's part of the reason why fashion
is one of the world's top polluters.

So in the last few years,

some of the biggest names in the business:
Levi's, Nike, Adidas, Zara

have started recycling programs.

All retailers with donation bins in stores
calling out for your old garments.

But none go as far as H&M.

They will take anything: jeans,
curtains, even underwear.

Just check out their ads.

The thing that you never wore.

This and this and that.

The thing with the color
that wasn't your color.

Bring it on.

This is one of H&M's latest ad campaigns.

Cut your jeans into pieces
and make new jeans out of them.

"Cut your jeans into pieces
and make new jeans out of them."

With your help,we literally turn
your old clothes into new garments.

"We literally turn your old clothes
into new garments."

Garments in the worst condition
can be transformed

into insulation material
or textile fibers woven into cloth,

reborn as fashionable new clothes
of every conceivable kind.

What do you think about recycling clothes?

I think that's amazing.

That's a great plan.

We're talking about recycling clothes.

What does that make you
think is happening to the stuff?

I think maybe it's, like,
refurbish the clothes

and get them to look new again.

What do you think happens to that stuff?

Doesn't it get recycled to make
new clothes from the old clothes?

Let's shred it into fibers
and stitch it into something new

The only thing we will not do it waste it.

Bold recycling claims.

They sound great, but are they really?

[ Flight Attendant
Over Intercom ]

To try to find out,
we head to New York City,

one of the fashion capitals of the world.

With jackets, you always
have to check the lining.

To meet Elizabeth Cline,
an anti-fast fashion crusader.

Because of what she knows,
she only wears used clothes.

It's made her a pro
at assessing cast-offs.

On a coat, the first thing you would do
is make sure the zippers work.

Especially fast fashion, like,
a lot of the fasteners will just break

and chip really quickly.

We show her H&M's marketing

and ask her what she thinks about
making new clothes out of your old ones.

Shred it into fibers and stitch it
into something new.

The reality is that currently only about
1% of clothing is actually recycled

in the very literal sense of the word.

1%?

1%.

1%...is recycled?

If you're talking about recycling
in terms of taking fibers

and breaking them down

and turning them back
into new fibers, it's 1%.

Why is it so hard to just take my old shirt
and turn it into a new one?

Why can't you just do is that?

A lot of our clothes are made
out of blended fibers,

so maybethis is acrylic and wool
and cotton mixed together,

maybe my tights are cotton and elastin,

that makes it difficult to recycle.

The other challenge is that
when you recycle cotton and wool,

it diminishes the quality
of that material,

so it weakens the cotton and wool strand
and gives you a lesser product.

Bottom line, the technology
just isn't there yet.

It's way too expensive
and too time consuming

to make new clothes from old ones.

It's also a more skeptical side of me

that knows that the reason why
H&M is focusing on textile recycling

is because it's an easy sustainability win
for them.

It doesn't involve them changing
their production model at all

to collect clothes and make sure
that they get a second life.

It doesn't make the fast fashion
system any more sustainable.

Experts agree fast-fashion needs to change
if we really want to make a difference

Remember when fashion had four seasons,

winter, spring, summer and fall?

Now the trends change almost every day.

Here's how this Swedish clothing giant
CEO explains it.

They have new garments coming
into the stores almost every day.

So if you go to an H&M store today
and come back two days later,

you will always find something new.

H&M salespeople tell us new clothes come in

every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday, and Sunday.

That works out to half
a billion products a year.

And it's why H&M's recycling campaign
makes Claudia Marsales so mad.

It really is a form of greenwashing.

She's the head of Markham,
Ontario's waste programs.

One of the few Canadian cities to actually
ban textiles from landfills.

In order for the fast fashion outlets
to recycle what they make,

it would take 12 years to recycle
what they sell in 48 hours.

Like it's just...

So that sort of tells me it's really
more about foot traffic, marketing,

greenwashing than about really
addressing the broken business model

of fast fashion.

We asked H&M to come on camera
and talk about their recycling program.

They declined, assuring us they don't want
to encourage a throwaway attitude.

Their clothes are good quality
and made to last.

And they are working towards
a business model where,

eventually, all their clothes
can be recycled.

At least they're trying?

Yes, well, but they're a cause of the problem,

so fast fashion retailers,
their business model is the problem.

They're making too much,
they're selling it too cheap.

It's disposable clothing.

Doing a bit of back-end recycling
and a bit of commercials

really doesn't address that issue.

And ask some customers one of the things
they love most about the program?

It's the discount.

That incentive to keep buying.

I put it in the bin and then
they give me a discount.

I saw it and it's like oh, snap.

You know, um, it's a way to, like,

you know, help me
and help them at the same time.

What do you mean when you say help you
and help someone else?

Um, help me by, you know, saving money
and help them by providing free clothing.

We just chuck it in the bin
and they did offer, like, a $5 discount.

H&M might be collecting your old clothes.

More than 55,000 tonnes so far,

but if they're barely making new clothes
from your donations,

where do they all go?

These shoppers have a theory.

Where do you think those clothes go
that you put in H&M?

They probably go to people who need them,

probably like shelters
or other places that use the clothes.

Probably give it for free, or something,
to the people that need it.

Where do you think that stuff goes,
what do you think happens to it?

Hopefully to just some needy people.

Yeah.

Who still want to be fashionable.

Many of us think our old clothes
are given to the less fortunate.

Wrong.

And maybe you're telling yourself that
to feel better about buying more, too.

Well, Cline coined a term for this.

What's the clothing deficit myth?

So, the clothing deficit myth is the idea
that when we give clothes to charity,

they're going to go to someone locally
in our community in need.

But in the era of fast fashion,

there's far more unwanted clothes
than there are people in need.

The Salvation Army knows all about that.

Remember, this is all the stuff
they can't sell at their stores.

So what do they do
with all these leftovers?

They sell it to a middle man.

And the retailers do the same thing
with all you donations too.

In Canada, H&M gives the money
it makes off your donations to UNICEF.

Here's the thing.

All textiles are worth money.

The stuff that's in really rough shape
is shredded for painter's cloth

cloths or insulation, for
example, then sold.

But the majority of all donated
clothes are shipped overseas to

developing countries
and they're sold there, too.

Not donated or
given to needy people.

And if you think that means
it's not going to end up in

landfills, think again.

We follow the trail of
your old tee-shirts.

Around the world.

>> The black stripes
here are from Canada.

>> Charlsie: You can't
afford to miss this trip.

This is your "Marketplace."

[ ♪♪ ]

>> Charlsie: The real
deal on your "Marketplace."

[ ♪♪ ]

>> Charlsie: We love
our clothes.

Now so cheap, you can make a
different statement every day.

These things are $3?

$5.

But they come with a huge cost.

Part of the reason why
some fast fashion chains,

like H&M, say they've got
recycling programs like this.

>> The Earth simply cannot bear
so many clothes ending their

lives as waste.

H&M has a far better answer.

>> Charlsie: But we learnt less
than 1% of the world's

used clothes are turned
into new ones.

The majority of those donations
from retailer and charity bins

are baled and sold overseas.

[ ♪♪ ]

>> This is Nairobi, Kenya, the
country at the top of the list

when it comes to
buying your old clothes.

Kenya is one of
Canada's best customers.

In a given year, they buy more
than $20 million worth of our

old clothes.

>> All the rest with
the black stripes,

the black stripes
here are from Canada.

These are a variety
of kids clothing.

This one is a jacket.

Ladies tee-shirts.

>> Charlsie: Maina Andrew
is a used clothing importer.

>> People from
Canada and America,

they are actually a bit huge.

>> Charlsie: Scenes
like this aren't isolated.

You'll see them all over Africa,
South and Central America.

A lot of this is stuff
Canadians donated for free,

only for it to be sold here
for profit to vendors like

Alice Nyansarora Anunda, who
brings it to her local market.

They call the clothes,
"Mitumba."

>> No, that one, it's
just a nickname we gave it,

"Mitumba" means, "Old"
in our culture.

>> Charlsie: Nearly
13,000 kilometres away.

But take a closer
look and there they are.

The names you know.

AEO, Zara, Adidas, H&M.

>> The way we open bales, we
know plans where there's new

clothes, especially
those which come from Canada.

>> Charlsie: But Andrew notices
many of the clothes are low

quality, tough to sell.

>> We just dump them.

If people don't buy
them, we just dump them.

[ ♪♪ ]

>> They do go in
the piles of garbage,

very many of them.

>> Charlsie: He says this
happens regularly right behind

the market, discarding and
burning clothes Canadians don't

want and neither do Kenyans.

>> Sometimes they pack
even very old items.

You can even pack items
that are not even good,

and they end up dumping
them in Africa or in Kenya.

[ ♪♪ ]

>> Yeah, we burn them and it is
a lost work because we have

already bought them.

[ ♪♪ ]

>> Charlsie: All those popular
brands in the crowded markets,

Elizabeth Cline
has seen them, too.

She's been to Kenya.

>> There are a lot of different
companies around the world that

are working on textile recycling
in the truest sense of the word,

but it's really in
the very early stages.

Whether it stays in the United
States or if it ends up in

Africa, ultimately it is
going to end up in the landfill.

>> Charlsie: We tell H&M
about this Kenyan market

and all the fires.

They say its middle man
I:CO, which handles pickup and

distribution of their bins,
has really high standards.

But they are still working
on building a better tracking

system so this
doesn't keep happening.

>> Dumping is always cheaper.

It's always the cheaper option.

There's only one solution.

The producer of the clothing
is responsible cradle to grave.

So they make the tee-shirt,
they sell the tee-shirt,

the tee-shirt comes back, they
have to recycle that tee-shirt.

They can't put it in a
third world country.

>> As far as South
Africa is concerned,

we banned secondhand clothing.

>> When a country
survives on secondhand things,

secondhand clothes, it means
there's something wrong with

that system.

>> Threatening the survival of
the local textiles industry.

>> Charlsie: And now many
of those countries

are fighting back.

East African countries sent
the world a message recently.

They don't want our
hand-me-downs and

tried to ban them.

Their government said
it was destroying

their own textile market.

>> Secondhand clothes are
quite cheap and any manufactured

textile would not be
able to compete with them.

>> Charlsie: And despite
everything you just watched,

Cline says H&M group is a
frontrunner in

sustainability efforts.

Compared to other
brands, they are leaders.

I don't know what that says
about the rest of the fashion

industry, that a fast
fashion chain is

at the top of that list.

Just know that your textile
waste is an environmental issue.

Textile waste in landfills
is one of the fastest growing

categories of waste, and
it's such an easy thing to do

something about.

>> Charlsie: So what should you
do with all your old clothes?

The answers, coming right up.

Do you have a story you
want us to investigate?

Write to us, [e-mail].

[ ♪♪ ]

>> The high cost of
fashion on your "Marketplace."

Do you ever impulse buy?

>> Absolutely.

>> Charlsie: What was the last
thing you bought that now you

see, and you're like,
"What was I thinking?"

>> Clothing always.

>> Charlsie: On average, we buy
almost 70 clothing items

every year.

That means we're buying
new clothes every week.

What did you buy?

>> A lot of stuff.

>> Charlsie: Did
you need anything?

>> No.

>> Charlsie: Just looking around
and you bought a few things.

>> Yes, I bought lots of things.

Leggings, shirts,
socks, underwear.

>> Charlsie: Most of these
styles will end up trashed

in landfill.

Fast fashion is a big
part of the problem,

but we don't have to buy in.

So this is 50%
polyester, 50% cotton.

It's really hard to separate
those fibers and make new stuff.

>> You bet.

>> Charlsie: Do you know how
many litres of water goes into

making a single pair of jeans?

Almost 4,000 litres.

>> Wow.
>> Whoo.

>> That's crazy.

[ ♪♪ ]

>> Charlsie: And sometimes
just seeing the waste

makes a difference.

These families swear
they'll change their ways.

>> They want to look
at the cute things,

things that look good but
not necessarily good quality.

>> We have to-- we try to teach
them to use their stuff until

it's worn out.

>> Charlsie: Speaking of
waste and consumption,

I've still got my bag of
clothes to get rid of.

I don't really know where
the best place is to go

with my stuff.

And I think people at home who
see this are probably going to

have the same question.

>> Some people like
to swap the clothes,

so that's the
first line of defence.

If it's in really
good condition,

you can take them to
a consignment store.

You can also donate to
a reputable charity.

Do your research on who
you're giving your clothing to.

Don't buy so much.

>> Charlsie: So bottom line,
when it comes to your used

clothing, don't throw it away,
try and give it to somebody who

can actually use it.

Hey, girls, does
anybody need a tee-shirt?

No, you sure?

Black dress pants?

Hardly ever wore them.

This is cool, right?

Zipper in the back.

>> I think I'm okay.

>> Charlsie: Any chance you
want to return yours and

take these ones.

>> No, thank you.

>> Charlsie: They're a
size small.

I wore them, like, twice.

>> No, thank you.

>> Charlsie: No?
>> No.

>> Charlsie: Do any of you need
a pair of pajama pants or know

someone who might want these?

>> I'll take them.
>> Charlsie: Tee shirt?

>> I'll take them.

>> Charlsie: Any chance
you want a pair of Levi's?

>> Sure, size 6, me.

>> Charlsie: Awesome!
>> Awesome.

>> Charlsie: There you go
and they won't go

to landfill this way.

>> No.

>> Charlsie: Maybe there is
no perfect solution to this

complicated problem.

But if there's something I've
learned throughout this process,

it's that there is
something I can do and,

for me, that will
mean buying less.

[ ♪♪ ]

>> Announcer: A special, year
long Marketplace investigation.

We go undercover,
inside nursing homes.

>> I was...

>> Announcer: Families
fighting for better care.

>> Die, die...

>> Woman: My poor mother.

>> Announcer: Has long term care
reached a crisis point?

>> Oh, we're
way past that.

I think we've been
in crisis for years.

>> If this happened
in a day care,

that day care would be
shut down in five minutes.

>> Announcer:
How to fight for better care,

On the next Marketplace.