Research more on:

Worldwide statistics on clothing waste + unethical consumerism (ex. F21 workers)

Philippine stat on clothing waste and problems caused by it
Online selling platforms, + get number of listings for clothing in Carousell
H&M clothing donations
Other fast fashion retailers accepting donations
Fast fashion – what it is
Ways to repurpose clothes
How clothes are recycled

However,

Research info!!

 Second to oil, the clothing and textile industry is the largest polluter

in the world.3
Waste

 It takes more than 5,000 gallons of water to manufacture just a T-shirt

and a pair of jeans. 3
 http://www.alternet.org/environment/its-second-dirtiest-thing-world-and-
youre-wearing-it
 Textile industry is one of the top 3 water wasting industry in China,
discharging over 2.5 billion tons of wastewater every year.2
 http://www.business2community.com/fashion-beauty/30-shocking-
figures-facts-global-textile-apparel-industry-
01222057#hBWEEKFemo8cCM9Q.97
 NPR reports, from the Environmental Protection Agency, that 15.1
million tons of textile waste was generated in 2013, of which 12.8 million
tons were discarded.
 About 15% of fabric intended for clothing ends up on the cutting room
floor. This  waste rate has been tolerated
industry-wide for decades.4
  Timo Rissanen, “From 15% to 0: Investigating the creation of fashion
without the creation of fabric waste,” Presenter, Kreativ Institut for
Design og Teknologi, September 2005.
 A few communities have textile recycling programs, about 85% of this
waste goes to landfills where it occupies about 5% of landfill space and
the amount is growing. 5
 http://worldwearproject.com/about-us/global-responsibility
 Up to 95% of the textiles that are land filled each year could be
recycled. 7
 http://www.smartasn.org/ | Secondary Materials and Recycling Textiles
[SMART]

https://edgexpo.com/fashion-industry-waste-statistics/

4. According to Greenpeace, global clothing production doubled from 2000 to

2014. The average person buys 60 percent more items of clothing every year
and keeps them for about half as long as 15 years ago, generating a huge
amount of waste. 

5. The average lifetime of a cloth is approximately 3 years.

6. Nearly 100 percent of textiles and clothing are recyclable.

8.  If the average life of clothing was extended by just three months, it would
reduce by five to ten percent their carbon and water footprints, as well as waste
generation. The recycling of two million tons of clothing per year equates to
taking one million cars from U.S. streets.  

The main benefit of textile recycling activities is the opportunity to reuse clothing.
Through the reuse of clothes and textiles, we can avoid pollution and energy-
intensive production of new clothing. Additionally, clothing that cannot be reused
may be repurposed into such products as rags or recycled into fabric or other
material for reprocessing. 

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/textile-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878122
Fast fashion focuses on speed and low costs in order to deliver frequent new collections
inspired by catwalk looks or celebrity styles. But it is particularly bad for the
environment, as pressure to reduce cost and the time it takes to get a product from design
to shop floor means that environmental corners are more likely to be cut. Criticisms of
fast fashion include its negative environmental impact, water pollution, the use of toxic
chemicals and increasing levels of textile waste.

Vibrant colours, prints and fabric finishes are appealing features of fashion garments, but
many of these are achieved with toxic chemicals. Textile dyeing is the second largest
polluter of clean water globally, after agriculture

Polyester is the most popular fabric used for fashion. But when polyester garments are
washed in domestic washing machines, they shed microfibres that add to the increasing
levels of plastic in our oceans. These microfibres are minute and can easily pass through
sewage and wastewater treatment plants into our waterways, but because they do not
biodegrade, they represent a serious threat to aquatic life. Small creatures such as
plankton eat the microfibres, which then make their way up the food chain to fish and
shellfish eaten by humans.

Textile waste is an unintended consequence of fast fashion, as more people buy more
clothes and don’t keep them as long as they used to. The international expansion of fast
fashion retailers exacerbates the problem on a global scale. Wardrobes in developed
nations are saturated, so in order to sell more products, retailers must tempt shoppers with
constant newness and convince them the items they already have are no longer
fashionable.

The Love Your Clothes initiative from the charity Wrap gives information for consumers
on each stage of the purchase process, from buying smarter, to caring for and repairing
items, to upcycling or customisation and finally responsible disposal. Ultimately, the best
thing we can do is to keep our clothing in use for longer – and buy less new stuff.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/environment-costs-fast-fashion-pollution-
waste-sustainability-a8139386.html

This cocktail party was to celebrate the launch of H&M’s most recent
Conscious Collection. The actress Olivia Wilde, spokeswoman and model for
H&M’s forays into sustainable fashion, was there wearing a new dress from
the line. But the fast-fashion giant, which has almost 4,000 stores worldwide
and earned over $25 billion in sales in 2015, wanted participants to also take
notice of its latest initiative: getting customers to recycle their clothes. Or,
rather, convincing them to bring in their old clothes (from any brand) and put
them in bins in H&M’s stores worldwide. “H&M will recycle them and create
new textile fibre, and in return you get vouchers to use at H&M. Everybody
wins!” H&M said on its blog.

Only 0.1 percent of all clothing collected by charities and take-back programs
is recycled into new textile fiber, according to H&M’s development
sustainability manager, Henrik Lampa, who was at the cocktail party
answering questions from the press. And despite the impressive amount of
marketing dollars the company pumped into World Recycle Week to promote
the idea of recycling clothes—including the funding of a music video by M.I.A.
—what H&M is doing is nothing special. Its salvaged clothing goes through
almost the exact same process as garments donated to, say, Goodwill, or
really anywhere else.

When natural fibers, like cotton, linen and silk, or semi-synthetic fibers created
from plant-based cellulose, like rayon, Tencel and modal, are buried in a
landfill, in one sense they act like food waste, producing the potent
greenhouse gas methane as they degrade. But unlike banana peels, you can’t
compost old clothes, even if they're made of natural materials. “Natural fibers
go through a lot of unnatural processes on their way to becoming clothing,”
says Jason Kibbey, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. 
Meanwhile, synthetic fibers, like polyester, nylon and acrylic, have the same
environmental drawbacks, and because they are essentially a type of plastic
made from petroleum, they will take hundreds of years, if not a thousand, to
biodegrade.

https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html

Fashion Swapp

Did you know that the fashion industry was also a big contributor to pollution? From
manufacturing to shipment to disposal, the process of creating garments can leave quite an
ecological footprint.

And because fast fashion was exacerbating the problem, team IdeaGo Philippines wanted to slow
this cycle down. Fashion Swapp app is an "online ukay-ukay," where users can sell, shop, trade,
or donate their old clothes.

Those who don't want to sell or swap their clothes can choose to donate them, and the team can
put these in upcycling facilities to create new products.
The team also said that data from users could serve as market research for retail companies, and
as basis for government agencies to craft and implement regulatory policies.

Phinix Textile Recycling

Textile waste is one of the biggest waste by-product of the fashion industry, with 11.1 million
tons of textile waste in the US alone for 2014. To help reduce this waste and prevent more of it
from simply being thrown into landfills, Team Phinix aims to be a pioneer textile recycling
center in the country that will collect old clothes and fabric scraps and upcycle these into newer,
highly valued products such as footwear and accessories.

The team hopes to scale up and have a textile recycling center in every country of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Pamela Mejia said they also planed to collaborate with local artisan designers and the
shoemaking industry to promote local businesses.

"We aim for the triple bottom line – we are for the planet, for the people, and for profit," she
said.

https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/social-good-summit/182273-hacksociety-2017-ideas-
waste-management-food-production

There are no rules in fashion but one: Recycle your clothes.” Text appears when the
audio fades out, informing viewers that 2,100 liters of water is saved every time a
shirt is reworn, repurposed as cleaning cloth, or given new life as textile fiber. 

This label has a strong history of being purposefully good to the environment. Not
only have they pledged to eliminate toxic chemicals from their entire supply chain and
products, but in the Philippines, they introduced a re-jean swap. During this
occasional promo, the most recent one was on the last weekend of August, customers
were given a P1,000 voucher for any pair of jeans, regardless of brand, that they
handed in at the stores.

“We are not fast fashion. We are in a different league from fast fashion,” says Uniqlo
Philippines chief operating officer Katsumi Kubota. “Fast fashion is for people who
change fashion at a very fast pace. [With Uniqlo] it’s not like you wear it then throw it
away. The quality is good, good enough that you can wear [the clothes] for several
years, actually.”
http://preen.inquirer.net/13728/7-retailers-that-can-help-you-become-an-eco-friendly-shopper

From two seasons, spring/summer and fall/winter, ready-to-wear companies have

expanded the fashion season from bi-annual to weekly. New collections are docked in
stores every week, making customers feel that what they bought last week is already
out of fashion, so therefore, their clothes are disposable and should be replaced every
week.

“When talking about sustainable fashion, its more than just a one-off capsule
collection or single product. You need to take into account the many social and
environmental issues associated with clothing such as raw material sourcing, ethical
and eco-model factories and the use of dyes and finishes,” the rep reminded.

Katsumi Kubota, Uniqlo Philippines Chief Operating Officer, told Philstar.com in an

interview that through their Reycle program, they have made sure that their company
has churned out no “unnecessary” wastes.

According to him, the campaign works by setting up chutes in their stores, where
customers can dock their scraps and old clothes to be recycled by the brand.

American apparel brand Gap believes that one pair of denim jeans can do a world of
good to someone in need, thus it recently introduced Recycle Your Blues, a denim
drive campaign that invites everyone to donate any old pair of denim jeans at their
nearest store. Upon donation, participants receive a discount for their next denim
purchase.

All donations will benefit Hands On Manila, a volunteering organization committed to

empowering individuals to act as citizens and realize their ability to contribute to the
community. Hands On Manila will not only be using the denim for donations, but also
in creating a livelihood program, which aims to teach the urban poor to recycle old
jeans.

https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/fashion-and-beauty/2017/09/05/1736067/blue-jeans-blue-
planet-how-fashion-addresses-textile-waste-one-jeans-time
Convince people to accept or at least acknowledge the validity of your position
Defend position even if others cannot be convinced to agree
Question or refute a position you believe to be misguided

Build
– research, identify problem and solutions
-state the issue/claim
-judge quality and strength of the evidence (research)
-decide which explanation you favor

Weigh
-evaluate based on research
-have I been surprised by anything I discovered during my research? If so, why?
-If my sources contradict each other, which do I agree with and why?

Refute – countering or anticipating counterarguments

-address objections of the other side
-show that the opposing arguments are unsound, unfair, or weak

to counter for my topic:

-but people would keep clothes: show statistics
-perpetration of fast fashion: you’re already contributing to the problem by buying more
-lack of recycling facilities in the Philippines is discouraging: there are other ways
-I threw it away because it wasn’t “usable” anymore: can always repurpose or recycle fabric
-thrift shops are kadiri: there are many alternatives now to even “ukay-ukay” or clothes from
foreign countries. Here in the country, you have a lot of online selling platforms that are riding
along this whole fast fashion phenomenon – millennials sell barely used or unused clothes they
want to get rid of to find a second home (“preloved”) – enumerate platforms, take carousell as
an example and then show # of clothing listings in metro manila and nationwide

Guidelines in writing the position paper

gain attention
outline problem or situation
answer the unspoken questions of the other side
develop a position logically and fairly
summarize areas of agreement and disagreement
appeal to both reason and emotion

Outline
 I. Introduction
a. Introduce topic
b. Provide background
c. Asser the thesis (your view of the issue)
II. Counter Argument (can be put here, or last, before conclusion)
III. Your Argument
a. Assert point #1 (sol)
i. Give your opinion
ii. Provide support
b. Assert point #2 (sol)
i. Give your opinion
ii. Provide support
c. Assert point #3 (sol)
i. Give your opinion (good solution)
ii. Provide support (because)
IV. Conclusion
a. Restate problem and solution
b. Provide plan of action
V. References

Homework:
Outline and PSE
Cover Page (subj, section, title, name, prof) on top, outline, staple
Arial or TNR, 12, double space, 1” margin all sides, short bond
Page number
Cover page

questions for ma’am

how many sources
what to do for conclusion and recommendations? Do I choose one solution? – not choose one
but say which ones are stronger
How do I state my problem in a sentence – clothing waste can be managed through