Progress will require changes in how textiles are made, how products are produced or re-used, and customer/consumer behavior.
In the Atacama Desert of Chile, not far from the seaside town of Iquique, there exists a vast dumping ground of discarded textile products — much of it unused clothing originally produced for so-called fast-fashion retailers. Each year, according to Newsweek, roughly 60,000 tons of discarded clothing is added there.1
While clothing manufacturing has a long and, at times, unsavory history punctuated by instances of environmental …