arc21 welcomes Textile Waste Campaign
24 February 2021
arc21 has welcomed Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful’s Forever Fashion campaign aimed at addressing the growing problem created by excessive textile waste.
The campaign, funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), urges consumers to never throw unwanted clothing in the bin, encouraging people instead to think of more environmentally friendly ways to dispose of unwanted items such as reusing, repairing and reimagining.
Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful has reported that since December 2020, approximately 27,000 tonnes of textiles have been disposed of in Northern Ireland and that around 30% of this ends up in landfill.
Reusing, repairing and reimagining this material would help divert around 8,300 tonnes of waste from landfill. According to the waste hierarchy, landfill is the least optimal way to manage waste, not least because the methane gas produced by landfill waste is considerably more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.
DAERA’s recent local authority collected municipal waste management statistics showed that the volume of waste produced in Northern Ireland has increased in the last quarter. Given that we are quickly running out of landfill space, the Forever Fashion campaign is an innovative way to encourage everyone to think again before disposing of textiles in their black bin.
By making the effort to reuse, repair and reimagine our used textiles, we can all reduce our negative impacts on our local environment.
More information on the Forever Fashion campaign can be found here.