We Need the Clothing Industry to Change
Less than 1% of material used to make clothing gets turned into new clothing every year. To truly make an impact, we need industry-wide change. If the clothing industry recycled at the same rate as Patagonia, we could reduce the equivalent emissions needed to power every household in California for one year.*
*Patagonia has removed 20,000 tons of CO2e by using recycled content in one year. If we all did this together, we could remove 114,000,000 tons of CO2e. The calculation is based on extrapolating Patagonia’s current fabric mix (75% polyester, 12% cotton, 5% nylon, 2% down, 1% wool, 1% hemp and 4% other fiber types). According to the EPA emissions calculator, 114,000,000 metric tons of CO2e is equal to the amount of CO2e that results from the energy used in ~13,651,060 homes. According to census data, the total number of households in California is 13 million.