Fast fashion is a catastrophe, and you're part of it

“fast fashion is a topic that absolutely eats away at me. So I've got lots I want to get off my chest and lots I want to learn.”

Kiarne Treacy's had enough of fast fashion, and today she’s starting with your last online order.

She puts it to Danielle Kent, General Manager of Transformation at Seamless, Australia's national product stewardship scheme for fashion. Australians send more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing to landfill every year, roughly a full wardrobe per person.

Kiarne sits down with her to find out how that happened, and why recycling isn't the fix most people think it is.

Danielle explains how Australia's abundance of space and appetite for fast fashion has created a wardrobe surplus even our charities can't absorb. She's honest about the number that should worry everyone: only a small fraction of what we own actually gets recycled, and the reasons why involve everything from sequins to shipping routes.

The conversation gets into what's really happening to the clothes in your local charity bin, why global shipping disruptions are now sending containers of donated clothing straight to Australian landfill and what it would actually take to make brands responsible for a garment's whole life.

You’ll hear and learn:

• The one word Danielle says can ruin a garment's chance of ever being recycled
• Why 1.5 billion items of clothing hit the Australian market every year, and why Danielle says that number is a serious undercount
• What's really happening to the clothing sitting in shipping containers right now, and why it's not reaching the countries it was meant for
• The teenage trend no one saw coming, and what it reveals about why we buy the way we do
• Why some of Australia's most trusted brands are quietly buying back the same clothes they sold you
• The two numbers that show why only a tiny fraction of Australian fashion brands are actually accountable for what they sell
• What Danielle does every single time before she buys something new, and why it's saved her thousands

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who's ever dropped a bag of clothes at a charity bin and wondered what actually happens next, and for anyone rethinking how much, and how often, they buy clothes.

MENTIONS:

• Seamless
• Cotton On & eBay Australia partnership
• Australian Fashion Council
• Ellen MacArthur Foundation
• Refashion (France)
• Samsara eco
• BlockTexx
• Planet Protector

LINKS:

Learn more about SustainabilityTracker.com

Learn more about The Sustainable Transformation Podcast

Follow The Sustainable Choice Group on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok

Follow Nova Podcasts on Instagram for videos from the podcast and behind-the-scenes content – @novapodcastsofficial

CREDITS:

Host: Kiarne Treacy

Guest: Danielle Kent

Guest Company: Seamless

Find more great podcasts like this at novapodcasts.com.au

Nova Entertainment acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which we produced this podcast, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.