Earth Today | International Day of Zero Waste nears
Fashion to take the spotlight
Published:Thursday | March 13, 2025 | 12:07 AM
AS THE world prepares to celebrate another International Day of Zero Waste on March 30, the focus this year is on fashion and textiles as an important part of the solution to prevailing pollution woes.
With some 2.3 billion tonnes of municipal waste generated globally each year, including a reported 92 million tonnes of textile waste, pundits say that the fashion and textile sector must play a role in tightening the reins on the pollution problem.
“This [92 million tonnes] is the equivalent of a garbage truck full of clothing being incinerated or sent to a landfill every second. Between 2000 and 2015, clothing production doubled while the duration of garment use decreased 36 per cent, found the Ellen MacArthur Foundation,” noted a February 7 news release from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
“The fashion and textiles sector accounts for two to eight per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nine per cent of microplastic pollution reaching the oceans annually. It also consumes 215 trillion litres of water – equivalent to 86 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. An estimated 15,000 chemicals are used in the textile manufacturing process, and some of these substances accumulate in the environment for decades,” it added.
Jointly facilitated by UNEP and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, International Day of Zero Waste was established through a UN General Assembly Resolution with the aim to raise awareness about the critical role of waste management, and responsible consumption and production, in achieving sustainable development.
As the pollution crisis continues to loom large, the observance calls on individuals and organisations to adopt a life-cycle approach to waste management, with the focus on reducing resource use and environmental emissions at every stage of a product’s life cycle.
The UN resolution, meanwhile, stresses, among other things, “the urgency of taking immediate actions towards the long-term elimination of plastic pollution in marine environments”, including through “promoting sustainable consumption and production approaches, including resources efficiency and life-cycle approaches, in which products and materials are designed in such a way that they can be reused, remanufactured or recycled, and therefore retained in the economy for as long as possible, along with the resources of which they are made, and the generation of waste is avoided or minimise”.
Further, in proclaiming March 30 the International Day of Zero Waste, the resolution also recognises the connection between the sustainable management of waste and the world’s ability to realise progress in other areas, including climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Meanwhile, with the theme for this year, ‘Towards zero waste in fashion and textiles’, there is a call for the fashion industry to help to counter the waste challenge by “bolstering waste management globally, reducing waste generation, and promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns”.
“The fashion and textile sector is fuelling mass overconsumption and waste pollution. And as the industry continues to rapidly grow, so will its environmental impact, unless a shift towards circularity and sustainable production and consumption is taken by all actors,” noted Jacqueline Alvarez, the chief of UNEP’s Chemicals and Health Branch, in the release.
“The International Day of Zero Waste 2025 will promote a more circular sector and the recognition of textile waste as a valuable resource. Achieving zero waste in fashion and textiles cannot be an isolated effort. It requires determined action from all stakeholders, with benefits for all. Reducing pollution will, at the end, bring economic and environmental gains for all of society,” she added.