At a factory鈥痠n Zhejiang province on China鈥檚 eastern coast,鈥痶wo mounds of discarded鈥痗otton clothing and bed linens, loosely separated into dark and light colors, pile up on a workroom floor. Jacket sleeves, collars and brand labels protrude from the stacks as workers feed the garments into shredding machines.
It鈥檚 the first stage of a new life for the textiles, part of a recycling effort at the Wenzhou Tiancheng Textile Company, one of the largest cotton recycling plants in China.
Textile waste is an urgent global problem, , according to fashion sustainability鈥痭onprofit Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Even less 鈥� only 1% 鈥� are castoff clothes recycled into new garments; the majority is used for low-value items like insulation or mattress stuffing.
Nowhere is the problem the world鈥檚 largest textile鈥痯roducer and consumer,鈥痺here more than 26 million tons of clothes are thrown away each year, according to government statistics. Most of it ends up in landfills.
And factories like this one are barely making a dent in a country whose clothing industry is dominated by 鈥渇ast fashion鈥濃��� cheap clothes made from鈥痷nrecyclable synthetics, not cotton.鈥疨roduced from petrochemicals that contribute to climate change, air and water pollution, synthetics account for 70% of domestic clothing sales in China.
China鈥檚 footprint is worldwide: make the country one of the world鈥檚 largest producers of cheap fashion, selling in more than 150 countries.
To achieve a game-changing impact, what fashion expert Shaway Yeh calls 鈥渃ircular sustainability鈥� is needed among major Chinese clothing brands so waste is avoided entirely.
鈥淵ou need to start it from recyclable fibers and then all these waste textiles will be put into use again,鈥� she said.
But that is an elusive goal: Only about 20% of China鈥檚 textiles are recycled, according to the Chinese government 鈥� and almost all of that is cotton.
Chinese cotton is not without a taint of its own, said Claudia Bennett of the nonprofit Human Rights Foundation. in Xinjiang province by the country鈥檚 ethnic Uyghur minority.
鈥淥ne in five cotton garments globally is linked to Uyghur forced labor,鈥� Bennett said.
In May, the U.S. blocked imports from 26 Chinese cotton traders and warehouses to avoid goods made with Uyghur forced labor. But because the supply chain is so sketchy, Uyghur cotton is used in garments produced in other countries that , Bennett said.
鈥淢any, many, many clothing brands are linked to Uyghur forced labor through the cotton,鈥� she said. They 鈥渉ide behind the lack of transparency in the supply chain.鈥�
While China is a global leader in the production of electric cars and electric-powered public transit and has set a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, its efforts in promoting fashion sustainability and recycling textiles have taken a back seat.
According to a report this year from independent assessing major clothing companies on their environmental, human rights and equitability practices, there鈥檚 little accountability among the best-known brands.
The group gave Shein, whose online marketplace groups about 6,000 Chinese clothing factories under its label, just 6 out of a possible 150 points. Temu scored zero.
Also getting zero were U.S. label SKIMS, co-founded by Kim Kardashian, and low-price brand Fashion Nova. U.S. retailer Everlane was the highest-scorer at 40 points, with only half of those for sustainability practices.
China鈥檚 domestic policy doesn鈥檛 help.
Cotton recycled from used clothing is banned from being used to make new garments inside China. This rule was鈥痠nitially鈥痑imed at stamping out fly-by-night Chinese operations recycling dirty or otherwise contaminated material.
But now it means the huge spools of tightly woven rope-like cotton yarn produced at the Wenzhou Tiancheng factory from used clothing can only be sold for export, mostly to Europe.
Making matters worse, many Chinese鈥痗onsumers are unwilling to buy used items anyway, something the Wenzhou factory sales director, Kowen Tang, attributes to increasing household incomes.
鈥淭hey want to buy new clothes, the new stuff,鈥� he said of the stigma associated with buying used.
Still, among younger Chinese, a growing awareness of sustainability has鈥痗ontributed to the emergence of fledgling 鈥渞emade鈥� clothing businesses.
Thirty-year-old designer Da Bao founded Times Remake in 2019, a Shanghai-based brand that takes secondhand clothes and refashions them into new garments. At the company鈥檚 work room in Shanghai, tailors work with secondhand denims and sweatshirts, stitching them into funky new fashions.
The venture, which鈥痓egan鈥痺ith Da Bao and his father-in-law posting their one-off designs online, now has a flagship store in Shanghai鈥檚 trendy Jing鈥檃n District that stocks their remade garments alongside vintage items, such as Levi鈥檚 and Carhartt jackets.
The designs are 鈥渁 combination of the past style and current fashion aesthetic to create something unique,鈥� Bao said.
Zhang Na has a fashion label, Reclothing Bank, that sells clothes, bags and other accessories made from materials such as plastic bottles, fishing nets and flour sacks.
The items鈥� labels have QR codes that show their composition, how they were made and the provenance of the materials. Zhang draws on well-established production methods, such as textile fibers made from pineapple leaf, a centuries-old tradition originating in the Philippines.
鈥淲e can basically develop thousands of new fabrics and new materials,鈥� she said.
Reclothing Bank began in 2010 to give 鈥渘ew life to old things,鈥� Zhang said of her store in a historic Shanghai alley with a mix of Western and Chinese architecture. A large used clothes deposit box sat outside the entrance.
鈥淥ld items actually carry a lot of people鈥檚 memories and emotions,鈥� she said.
Zhang said she has seen sustainability consciousness grow since she opened her store, with core customers in their 20s and 30s.
Bao Yang, a college student who dropped by the store on a visit to Shanghai, said she was surprised at the feel of the clothes.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 amazing, because when I first entered the door, I heard that many of the clothes were actually made of shells or corn (husks), but when I touched the clothes in detail, I had absolutely no idea that they would have this very comfortable feel,鈥� she said.
Still, she conceded that buying sustainable clothing is a hard sell. 鈥淧eople of my age are more addicted to fast fashion, or they do not think about the sustainability of clothes,鈥� she said.
Recycled garments sold at stores like Reclothing Bank have a much higher price tag than fast-fashion brands鈥痙ue to their costly production methods.
And therein lies the real problem, said Sheng Lu, professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware.
鈥淪tudies repeatedly show consumers are not willing to pay higher for clothing made from recycled materials, and instead they actually expect a lower price because they see such clothing as made of secondhand stuff,鈥� he said.
With higher costs in acquiring, sorting and processing used garments, he doesn鈥檛 see sustainable fashion succeeding on a wide scale in China, where clothes are so cheap to make.
鈥淐ompanies do not have the financial incentive,鈥� he said.
For real change there needs to be 鈥渕ore clear signals from the very top,鈥� he added, referring to government targets like .
Still, in China 鈥済overnment can be a friend to any sector,鈥� Lu said, so if China鈥檚 communist leaders see economic potential, it could trigger a policy shift that drives new investment in sustainable fashion.
But for now, the plastic-wrapped cones of tightly-wound cotton being loaded onto trucks outside the Wenzhou Tiancheng factory were all headed to overseas markets, far from where their recycling journey began.
鈥淔ast fashion definitely is not out of fashion鈥� in China, Lu said.
