In 2018, according to Vox Media, the British luxury brand Burberry was exposed for burning $36.8 million worth of their own merchandise in one year in order to “preserve its reputation of exclusivity.” Richemont, the owner of the jewelry and watch brands Cartier, Piaget, and Baume & Mercier, admitted that they had destroyed about $563 million worth of watches over the two prior years. And this problem lies with both luxury and fast fashion brands: from Louis Vuitton and Gucci to Nike, Victoria Secret, Walmart, and Amazon. H&M was even revealed to have burnt over 60 tons of new and unsold clothes from 2013-2018.
Although these numbers are mind blowing, what’s more worrisome is why this information isn’t being talked about. The reason for this is because large brands, designers, and corportations have created a consumer blaming mentality, placing the blame on us (the consumers) for making the demand so high and not purchasing enough in return. While the average amount of garments purchased per year for one person is far too high (68 garments!), it is not the consumers fault that brands are choosing to burn and shred billions of dollars in clothes rather than put clothes on sale or evaluate their excessive waste of labor and products. Luxury brands like Chanel and Michael Kors would rather burn merchandise and lose money than risk cheapening their brand by putting items on sale. In the end, it's all about large corporation profit at the expense of the environment, human labor conditions, the depletion of resources, and many more.
The destruction of this excess inventory also has serious environmental impacts like the carbon emissions and other chemicals that are released into the air from burning the clothes. Vox writer Chavie Lieber interviewed Timo Rissanen on the subject, an associate dean at Parsons School of Design and a professor of fashion design and sustainability. He explained that “polyester now accounts for about 60 percent of the total fiber market, and it comes from oil. So you could make the case that when we burn polyester, we are burning oil…[but] where it gets insane is thinking about clothes that were never worn in the first place. The fabric was made, the garments were made, the labor was put in, and then the stuff gets burned. It represents all kinds of different waste across the system.”
Not only is this an environmental hazard that contributes to the greenhouse gas emissions and effects of global warming, but it’s also a huge waste of materials and labor for products that never reach the consumers.
More sustainable options have been explored, like the shredding and recycling of fabrics to make insulation or yarn, but a lot of fabrics are blends of materials that can’t be recycled well. Recycling also takes manual labor as buttons and zippers must be removed before items are shredded, which has a cost, and brands find it cheaper to just destroy them instead. In the past the US has donated tons of clothes to Africa, Latin America, South America, and Asia, but in the past few years some countries in Africa have “banned the importation of secondhand clothing from the West [because] it suppresses their own textile and apparel industry.” Fashion brands know the more sustainable options they have, but in the end, it is always cheaper to just burn clothes instead of recycling or exporting.
So where does this leave the consumer and how can we make an impact?
Luckily, theres a solution to this problem with the individual things we can do to help! The best thing to do is avoid impulse-shopping and focus on fewer items that will bring you the most satisfaction. This aims to decrease the overall demand for items made by fast fashion and luxury brands so they will produce less supply and waste less. Shopping and selling secondhand is another way to help decrease this demand and protect the environment because you are recycling and buying recycled clothes instead of contributing to the production of more clothes.
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