The data by analytics company GlobalData reveals an increase in the demand for more sustainable products. The 4-year study by the Renewal Workshop revealed around 82 per cent of textile and apparel waste can be reused and resold. Beth Wright, apparel correspondent for GlobalData, has said that the pandemic has resulted in rise of responsible consumers especially amongst the millennial and Gen Z. This generation is increasingly turning their back against fast fashion and favouring more circular and sustainable products designed with minimum waste and from recycled materials. He further said that “Fashion firms looking to build back better from the pandemic and engage with this new breed of consumers, must tap into what is traditionally considered textile waste as a new raw material.” Moreover, a report published by the Textile Exchange’s Accelerating Circularity project also states that the post-industrial and post-consumer materials, the raw materials for textile-to-textile recycling, are the logical industry feedback. These materials can reduce the dependency on virgin material and reduce the usage of water, energy and chemicals. Sweden is one of the leading countries in terms of innovation as it is home to the Sysav Group, which is claimed to be the world’s first automated sorting plant for post-consumer textiles on an industrial scale. It features a sorting capacity of around 24,000 tonnes of textiles per year. Also, it recently played host to the first retail model of the garment-to-garment recycling system pioneered by the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA). The system is launched in one of the H&M’s Drottninggatan stores in Stockholm, which allows the consumers to see their old garments being converted into the new one.
