Mode.Macht.Menschen (2026)

25/04/2021

Why we should rent more clothes (instead of buying them):

1) Borrowing or renting clothes is more sustainable than buying new clothes.

2) By borrowing clothes, we not only conserve resources and the environment, but also save money. Renting clothes brings variety to our closet without having to spend a lot.

3) By borrowing clothes, we can also try out new styles without having to buy the corresponding clothes directly. In this way, we can avoid bad purchases.

4) Especially for special occasions like celebrations or weddings, it is good to borrow clothes. This helps us to stop spending a lot of money on clothes that we hardly wear otherwise.

5) It is also good to borrow appropriate pregnancy fashion for pregnancy, during which one's size is constantly changing.

6) By borrowing clothes, we save space in our closet.

22/04/2021

The 6 R's of responsible clothing consumption:

1. Rethink: Ask yourself if you really need the garment.

2. Refuse: Refuse to always buy everything right away. Maybe you can borrow the garment you need from a friend, share it or trade it.

3. Reduce: When buying your clothes, pay attention to where and how they were produced (e.g. through certain fair textile labels or sustainable fashion labels).

4. Re-use: Wear your clothes as long as possible.

5. Repair: Repair your clothes and take good care of them so you can wear them as long as possible.

6. Recycle: Avoid waste. Pass on old clothes or make something new out of them.

21/04/2021

What does a T-shirt really cost?

And what makes up what percentage of the price we pay in retail or online stores?

As the graphic shows, only 0.6% (!) of the total money we pay for a t-shirt goes to the people who make it in textile factories. Even for a t-shirt we pay 30 euros for, that's only 18 cents!

More than half of the selling price is earned by the retailers. The manufacturer gets a little more than 10%. Also, the cost of materials is only 11.7% of what we end up paying in the store. So even though most of the production of a t-shirt takes place in countries of the global south, most of the revenue remains in the global north.

20/04/2021

Where does a T-shirt really come from?

When we buy an average (fast fashion) T-shirt, it has already made a long journey.

If we look at the label, there is usually only one country of production. However, the various steps in the production of a T-shirt usually take place in many different countries.

The graphic shows you how the supply chain of a garment typically looks like.

In such a typical supply chain, each step is done in a different country.
The most important reason for this is to save costs.

13/04/2021

What is the fashion industry already doing to reduce its climate damage?

In 2018, the United Nations adopted the so-called "Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action" (UNFCCC). The charter was signed by various civil society actors and companies from the textile and fashion industry. Together, they pursue the goal of achieving complete climate neutrality in the textile and fashion industry by 2050.

What does the charter contain?

The charter defines 16 principles to reduce the industry’s impact on climate change. All companies that have signed the charter so far commit to reduce emissions along the entire value chain of their products. Companies are expected to initially reduce emissions by 30% by 2030 and further reduce and fully offset them by 2050.

What is the "Playbook for Climate Action"?

In the fall of 2020, the initiative published the Playbook for Climate Action to help companies in the textile and fashion industry to become more climate friendly. The Playbook provides companies with concrete action plans and guidance on how they can reduce their CO2 emissions and improve their climate protection.

12/04/2021

The textile and clothing industry alone produces more than 90 million tons of waste per year. In the cutting of clothing alone, around 15% of the fabrics are not even used, but end up directly in the trash.

Furthermore, all the garments that are not sold after their production and are thrown away completely unworn. In the EU, this amounts between 1.5 and 2 million tons per year, according to estimates.

In addition, many items of clothing are disposed of again after only a short period of consumption. According to estimates, around 60% of all items of clothing are not worn for more than a year before they end up in the trash. In Germany alone, almost 400,000 tons of textiles are disposed of every year. This means that every German throws away an average of almost 5 kilograms of clothing.

The problem with these large quantities of textile waste, however, is that the majority of old clothes cannot be recycled. This is because most (fast fashion) garments are made from a mix of natural fibres (mainly cotton) and synthetic fibres (mainly polyester, nylon, acrylic, elastane). However, the synthetic fibres are difficult to separate again from natural fibres. Thus, it is not possible to recycle pure yarn from old garments. In addition, it is usually more expensive to recycle old fibres than to produce new ones. For many companies, recycling old garments is thus not profitable.

Even of the clothing that ends up in used clothing containers in Germany, only about half is still wearable at all. The rest is downcycled, for example into cleaning rags or insulation material. Anything that cannot be used for this purpose, e.g. due to a high proportion of synthetic fibres, is incinerated.

10/04/2021

Today's post is about microplastic pollution from clothing:

About 15% of the world's plastic is produced by the textile industry, which uses it to make synthetic fibres for clothing and textiles. Examples of such materials made from plastic fibres are polyester, acrylic, nylon or elastane. Polyester alone now accounts for 60% of all textile fibres used.

Although the production of synthetic fibres uses less water than, for example, the cultivation of cotton, at the same time they are difficult to recycle. In addition, garments made of synthetic fibres release up to 70,000 microplastic fibres into the water every time they are washed in the washing machine. These microplastic particles then end up in wastewater.

Around 35% of the world's microplastics are caused by washing synthetic clothing.
In Germany, some of the microplastic particles in wastewater can be filtered out of the water again by sewage treatment plants. In many other countries, however, the wastewater is discharged directly into rivers and oceans. According to estimates, this means that around 0.5 million tons of microplastics end up in the oceans.

What can we do about microplastic pollution when we wash?
- Air out garments more often to wash them less often

- Buy new garments preferably made from natural materials

- Buy synthetic garments second-hand as the majority of microplastic fibres are released into the water during the first wash cycles

- Wash at low temperatures and a low spin cycle

- Use wash bags that filter the microplastics out of the water

09/04/2021

The textile industry produces more greenhouse gases than global air and sea traffic combined! About 10 percent of all global CO2 emissions are caused annually by the textile industry alone.

This means that every new piece of fast-fashion clothing we buy has quite a high C02 footprint.
The production of 10 pairs of jeans alone causes as many CO2 emissions as a flight from Berlin to Munich!

Why is that?
1) The energy used by textile factories in countries of the Global South is mainly generated by coal mining.

2) In addition, large amounts of CO2 are released during the many transport routes a garment goes through during its value and supply chain. Spinning of fibers, dyeing and sewing are usually carried out in different factories, often located in several countries.

3) The extraction of petroleum needed to produce polyester also causes large amounts of CO2 emissions.

4) In addition to the emissions from the manufacturing process, CO2 emissions are also caused by the booming online trade. Furthermore, around 32% of online ordered goods get returned in Germany.

07/04/2021

On day two of our theme week we want to talk about the chemical consumption of the fashion industry:

Chemicals are not only used in the production and processing of materials into garments (e.g. for dyeing or bleaching), but already in the cultivation of natural fibres.

1) Chemical consumption in the cultivation of natural fibres:

Large amounts of pesticides are used especially in the cultivation of cotton, the most commonly used natural fibre. Hardly any other plant is treated with fertilizers and pesticides as frequently as cotton. This not only damages the plants themselves, but also the soil, which absorbs the toxic (and non-biodegradable) pesticides. In the long run, this practice often causes soil infertility.

2) Chemical use in garment manufacturing:

Highly toxic pesticides are also used in the textile manufacturing process. According to WWF, 2 to 4 times the weight of a T-shirt made of cotton alone uses toxic chemicals. A sweater made of viscose even requires 5 to 7 times the weight of chemicals!

06/04/2021

On Day 1 of our theme week, let's take a closer look at the fashion industry's resource consumption:

1) Water consumption:
Around 80 billion cubic meters of water are consumed annually by the fashion industry, including for the cultivation of cotton and the dyeing and bleaching of textiles. The production of a single cotton T-shirt alone consumes around 2,700 liters of water!

There is often a shortage of water at production sites, which is why textile factories there contribute to the reduction of groundwater supplies. Sewage treatment plants are rare near textile factories, so that even water contaminated (with chemicals) often returns unfiltered to local water cycles and pollutes them.

2) Petroleum consumption:
Petroleum is needed to produce synthetic fibres. Crude oil is a fossil raw material and therefore not infinitely available. The extraction of petroleum is often associated with severe environmental pollution. In addition, the synthetic fibres used for polyester clothing usually cannot be reused and re-spun.

Mode.Macht.Menschen

25/04/2021

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21/04/2021

20/04/2021

13/04/2021

12/04/2021

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