Australia’s fashion world record that no one should be proud of

Australia’s clothing consumption crisis, including an addiction to fast fashion, cannot be solved through existing measures, such as a small levy on new garments, with a new report saying drastic action is needed to tackle waste and improve circularity.

These findings come as an analysis of data on textile and clothing consumption by think tank the Australia Institute found that Australians are the biggest purchasers of new clothing in the world per capita, with 56 pieces a year, ahead of the United States on 53 pieces. The UK is in third place with 33 pieces, ahead of China on 30.

Australians’ addiction to new clothes is creating a waste crisis.Credit: iStock

According to the report, Australians are also addicted to cheap clothing, with the average value of each new garment being $13, compared to $40 for their UK counterparts.

For years, Australia has been cited as the second-biggest consumer of clothing textiles behind the US but this new research, which incorporates data from the Australian Fashion Council and international sources, challenges this long-held view.

Each year, Australians discard more than 300,000 tonnes of clothing, the majority of which goes to landfill or offshore for processing or recycling. Although awareness of fashion’s footprint on the environment is arguably higher than ever, the volume of textiles sent to landfill is gradually increasing, while the proportion being recycled largely remains stagnant, at around five per cent.

One of the report’s more controversial recommendations is that a proposed four cent proposed tariff on every garment produced is grossly inadequate to have a significant impact on the creation of a viable domestic recycling system for textiles.

The report suggests the tariff, an initiative of the Seamless clothing stewardship scheme that has federal government backing, needs to be in the order of 50 cents per garment to create meaningful change.

“This [four cent levy] is a good start, but the levy is too low to change brand behaviour,” says Nina Gbor, who co-authored the report and is the director of the Circular Economy & Waste Program at the Australia Institute. “Seamless … is a step in the right direction, but must be accompanied by measures that drastically reduce waste at the source while building a circular economy.”

A spokeswoman for Seamless said while the organisation agreed with the report’s recommended multipronged approach to reducing textile waste, the size of the levy – especially in the launch phase – had been carefully considered.

“This levy was calculated and consulted with the full clothing supply chain during the project design phase, as well as based on global benchmarking,” she said.

Federal minister Tanya Plibersek has given the fashion industry until June 30 to self-regulate.Credit: Getty

Seamless, which is a voluntary scheme, will begin collecting the four cents on each garment from participating companies from July 1. Brands that have signed up to the pledge include Cotton On, David Jones and The Iconic.

Other measures recommended in the report include a French-style tax on fast-fashion garments, and a ban on fast-fashion advertising. These recommendations follow latest figures showing Chinese-owned ultra-fast fashion giant Shein is on track to make $1 billion in sales in Australia this year. And, according to Roy Morgan, 900,000 Australians are shopping at Shein each month. Its main rivals, Amazon and Temu, are also hugely popular with Australians.

Federal Minister for Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek said that while the government supports Seamless, she has issued the industry a June 30 deadline to show it can self-regulate.

“I’ve put the fashion industry on notice,” she said. “If we don’t believe it’s sufficient, or if it’s not raising enough money to cover its costs, then the government will regulate.”

Gbor says many Australians are not aware that some of the clothing sold by the ultra-fast-fashion brands has been found through independent research to contain toxic chemicals such as PFAS, Bisphenol A, chromium and lead. The over-consumption of these items may also be affecting our health.

She says these chemicals, including so-called “forever chemicals”, are linked to cancers, infertility, birth defects, skin irritations, headaches and liver disease.

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