Clothing production has roughly doubled in twenty years while the average is worn half as often.
Both halves of that sentence are necessary to explain the waste.
Price is the mechanism, and it has fallen in real terms for two decades.
A that costs a morning's wages is differently from one that costs a week's.
Recycling textiles is technically harder than recycling paper or metal.
Most s are , and separating polyester from cotton at scale remains unsolved commercially.
Mechanical recycling shortens the , so recycled content is limited to a small percentage.
Most collected clothing is therefore exported, and a significant share becomes waste at the destination.
Several receiving countries have restricted imports for exactly this reason.
standards are the intervention that reaches the cause rather than the symptom.
A minimum requirement for , dye fastness and washing cycles removes the cheapest tier entirely.
That is a real cost to households that buy at that tier, and it must be answered rather than ignored.
Repair services, second-hand markets and rental all extend a 's life at lower cost to the buyer.
They are also , which makes them expensive exactly where labour is expensive.
No policy removes that tension; the useful ones decide who carries it.