Sustainability Report 2017

FAST FASHION - AND THE CONSEQUENCES Over the last decades, textile manufacturing and sales volumes have risen dramatically all over the world. Since the turn of the millennium, production has doubled to over 100 billion items of clothing per year, while sales have increased by 80 percent to around 1,8 trillion US dollars. By 2025, this amount is expected to rise to 2,1 trillion USD (cf. Greenpeace, 2017) . The current linear shape of the textile value chains, consisting of production, distribution, sales, consumption and disposal, requires considerable quantities of natural resources and is therefore extremely harmful to the envi- ronment. Due to the increasing sales and volumes of textiles, more and more energy, water, and oil are required in their production. More than 700 gallons of water are used to make just one 10-ounce T-shirt (cf. WWF, 2013) . In addition, pesticides, fertilizers, and chemicals are harmful to the environment. Fin- ished textiles contain a variety of fibre blends, chemicals, and dyes, making recycling technically difficult and expensive. This has a substantial impact on the production cost for textiles containing recycled fibres, which cannot compete with virgin material. (cf. Greenpeace, 2017) . On the supply-side, many re- searchers are predicting a shortage of textile raw materials by the year 2025 (cf. Forschungskuratorium textil, 2012) . Considering such challenges, professional textile collection, high-quality sorting and the sustainable re- use and processing of discarded textiles are becoming a more important part of the textile industry and specialised textile recycling companies will help to close the loop in the textile life cycle. 9