It’s not uncommon to find organisations trying out new ways to help create a better system that can promote an eco-friendly way of manufacturing products. For the fashion industry in Australia, sustainable fashion was one of the most popular concepts that were fairly successful in recent years. Circularity is now the next best thing when it comes to sustainability and although the idea is as old as the 1960s, the implementation of this concept of cyclic economy is pretty new.
All these years, fashion products like jeans and clothes followed a linear pattern. Manufactured by a company, shipped to respective stores in and around Australia, bought by customers and months later, discarded in the trash. This reckless pattern of disposal had been drastically harming the environment, not to mention the large number of environmental challenges that rose in its wake. There are a few other reasons for this progression too:
- The lifestyle of many Australians succumbing to the latest fashion trends and lifestyles.
- Garments and clothes are being sold at low prices to manage competition and are still not durable enough to last as long.
- Manufacturers produce large scale quantities of clothes and that too at a pace faster than daily consumption.
With large scale manufacturing leading to overproduction, customers going for the cheapest clothes every time, the lack of good quality materials and improper ways of disposal have led many fashion enterprises to rethink their production cycle. Thanks to the sustainability experts in the country, the new concept came to be widely known as Circularity. However, many speculate that the Australian government must take the necessary action across all levels to facilitate the country’s transition into a circular economy.
Circular Fashion: The New Concept In Sustainability
Fashion industries in the country are looking to shift towards a circular approach compared to the linear model of manufacturing and disposal. When it comes to circularity, the industry must address these issues:
- Design clothes and other items with sustainability in mind and design the whole process to get rid of the older linear model of production. This includes using virgin raw materials for manufacturing, getting rid of blends and using single fibres, making sure the trims and any hardware present can be easily removed and ensuring that the final product can be recovered after disposal and reused or recycled. Companies should also ensure that the chemicals or other elements used in the manufacturing process are safe and non-toxic to both the human body as well as the environment.
- Manufacturers should use products that occur naturally and in a way that can be replenished without taking a toll on the resources. An example of this would be to use organic cotton or make fibres from the residues of food.
- Companies must make products that last longer and in case they get discarded, can be resold or recycled for other important purposes. These products must be sustainable enough to add value even after recycling or upcycling. The more these finished products can be recycled back into raw materials, the better.
- And finally, the disposal of these products must be in such a way that they should degrade or go back into nature without polluting it or harming the environment surrounding it.
Circularity is an idea that must be embraced and implemented to ensure that the nature that gives people the same resources to make these products doesn’t struggle to meet future demands. It’s high time that the Australian government and the fashion industries have made products with the environment in mind and not just its customers and consumers.
