Some facts behind the booming clothing industry that always changes every season around the world, include the need for 20,000 liters of water to produce 1 kg of cotton as the main ingredient of fabric.

This amount is equivalent to 1.5 trillion liters of water per year used in the clothing industry, while at the same time there are millions of people in several countries and regions who still cannot enjoy access to clean water (even some remote areas in Indonesia).

There are several categories in clothing production, including fast fashion and slow fashion. In the fast fashion industry, companies compete to meet the latest clothing trends in a short time, but at low production costs.

As a result, the company exploits a large number of workers who can be paid low wages. This leads to the industry contributing to environmental pollution, particularly water pollution, with 80% of the fabric waste being recycled, and only about 1% being recycled.

Seeing this trend, slow fashion industry players have expressed concern for the fast fashion industry. Slow fashion businesses are committed to creating environmentally friendly and durable products and paying workers a fair wage.

Some things that can be done to reduce textile waste:

1. Check the labels on the clothes. Materials containing the word ‘poly-‘ are an indicator that they contain plastic. So if it is washed it can cause the material to be released from its fibers and become the largest source of microplastics in the sea.

2. Become an aware consumer by buying clothes at second-hand shops or those that are slow fashion products.

3. Reduce, reuse, and recycle are very applicable to clothing. Reduce means reducing the need to buy new clothes all the time. Reuse means using second-hand brand clothing to give old, still usable clothes a new lease of life, or repairing your own clothes. And recycle means reusing clothes that are no longer usable but can still be used for other purposes.

4. In 2017, the Copenhagen Fashion Summit created the Circular Fashion System, a sustainable concept. This system encourages clothing companies to be responsible for their products by labeling materials and educating consumers about wise clothing choices that can extend the lifespan of clothing.