A scene that wasn't entirely dissimilar from many teenage girls' rooms outside a shopping mall in Prague may have looked messy, but it delivered a strong message: textile waste is becoming an enormous environmental problem.
As detailed by Expats.cz, a massive pile of clothing provided by Diakonie Broumov — a social co-op that collects used textiles from around the country, then sorts them and gives them a second life — weighing approximately four tons was erected in Prague's Náměstí Republiky in front of the Palladium shopping mall.
Every Czech citizen discards 10-12 kilograms (around 25 pounds) of textiles annually. The clothing pile symbolized the amount of textile waste generated by an average family over their lifetime and the annual carbon footprint of 10 Czech citizens if the clothing were new.
Textile waste isn't just a problem in the Czech Republic, either; it's a growing environmental concern mainly caused by the rise of fast fashion. Fast fashion is clothing sold at low prices that allows consumers to keep up with the latest trends without breaking the bank. To be sold cheaply, however, it is also made cheaply and quickly discarded, creating an enormous amount of waste.
According to Earth.org, over 100 million tons of textile waste are sent to landfills each year.
This isn't entirely surprising, considering that the number of times an article of clothing gets worn has declined by 36% in the last 15 years.
Buying from sustainable companies instead of fast-fashion brands, shopping secondhand, and trading in old clothes instead of throwing them away are actions individuals can take to reduce the amount of waste created by the clothes they wear.
Regarding the problem in the Czech Republic, Expats reported that, starting in 2025, Czech municipalities will be required to implement new regulations for the separate collection and recycling of textile waste.
"Prague has long been working to reduce the amount of reusable waste," said Jana Komrsková, the city's deputy mayor for the environment, in a press release. "Textiles account for over two percent of our waste. While this may seem small, it's a category that can be repurposed."
"The best waste is the waste that is never created," said Petr Hladík, the Czech minister of the environment. "But when items reach the end of their life, we must ensure they are recycled effectively."
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