Fashion in China

Course Name:

FASH 210 SEMINAR FASHION SUSTAINABILITY

Semester:

2015/16 Spring semester

Student Name:

Chan Wai Kam

Title:

Is it possible to work the collection of old clothing in China?

Introduction:

From the research of Treehugger, they indicated that China’s textile industry processed 41.3 million tons of fiber and accounted for 52-54 percent of the world’s total production. They create around 3 billion tons of soot each year and millions of tons of unused fabric go to waste because of dyed in wrong color each year. The water pollution and wastewater in China are very serious issue. The textile industry ranked third for overall in Chinese industry in 2010. There are 2.5 billions tons of wastewater per year. The industrial pollution and fabric waste are the important issue that China is facing in nowadays.

On the other hand, China’s economic development is raising very fast. China ranked second high GDP score around the world.Base on this factor, people in China becoming rich and high purchasing power.  They are willing to spend more money on clothing and tend to purchase luxury goods. The fast fashion leads the product life cycle changing very fast. It brings up the retail industry and provides the large opportunity government on retail business. However, the drawback is it also increases the textile waste. How we can reduce or improve the textile waste problem by raising awareness of recycling clothes in China, retailers recycling program and government support.

Textile wastes in China:

The total annual production of textile waste is estimated to be over 2 million tonnes in China. The market for the recycling of secondhand clothes has huge potential; the maximum revenue could be as high as RMB60 billion. (China Association of Resource Comprehensive Utilization, 2013).  We can see that the increasing of textile waste is becoming a serious environment threat. The reasons of the large increasing in textile waste generated in China are due to the increased speed of the fashion supply chain and consumer’s throwaway attitude towards fashion has contributed.  "China in a short time went from very poor to very rich. It has a lot of pent-up hunger to have things. There's this desire to consume stuff and much of it ends up in landfills," said Wang Jiuliang, a local filmmaker who made a documentary based on visiting more than 400 landfills around Beijing.

Julie Makinen wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “China has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest trash producer, churning out more than 260 million tons a year. Beijing's 20 million residents generate about 18,000 tons a day, most of which goes to landfills. With household trash volume rising at least 5 percent annually, according to the city, authorities are building new incinerators, though that's caused concern about further dirtying the capital's already smoggy skies. [Source: Julie Makinen, Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2012 \=\]

The textile waste problem in China is one of the biggest environment pollution issue.

The awareness of Chinese people to recycle the clothes:

From the above data, we can see that the awareness of most Chinese people of the relative importance of recycling clothing is also low. The materialistic consumption behavior drives them purchase the goods as much as they wants not base on needs. When the garments are obsoleted, they just threw them away but not recycle.  However, the awareness of environment pollution issue is low to. According to Carbon-trust recent research, Which examined how young adults’ attitudes towards climate change and carbon foot-printing influence their  purchasing decision and brand loyalty, 83% of young people questioned in china.

How could we increase the awareness of recycling clothes in China? Raising awareness of the impact of clothing disposal and making recycling as easy as possible are critical. This could include promoting clothing hire and other entrepreneurial solutions. The retailers, government and social media are being an important role to raise the awareness of recycling clothes of consumer in China.  Three of them should cooperate together.

Retailers:

Retailers should enhance the awareness of recycling of consumers. They can educate them how to be environmentally friendly. Let them know how to be an ethical consumer and involve into recycling process. Retailers can hold an event to collect the old clothes from consumer through emailing the information to them. They also can put some leaflet at the check out counter so when the consumer checking out, the cashiers can introduce the event to consumer. Let them know the event. They also can give some benefit to consumer such as give 5-10% off discount to them in next purchase if they bring their unwanted clothes to the retail shop to recycle it. This can be attractive factor for them to recycle the clothes. That's why influential brands and retailers have a good opportunity to help consumers understand the broader impacts of their lifestyles and the products and services they use. And there's good reason for doing so.

Social media:

Social media is one of the most influence factors to consumers. They are publicity so that everyone can see. In recent years, blogger is becoming very popular and powerful of influencing people. The famous bloggers can write the textile waste issue on their blog and suggest some methods to help consumers to stay in sustainable. The blogger can cooperate with retailer who is holding the recycling event to help them promote the event and enhance the consumer’s awareness of these area. Moreover, the retailer also can produce some video clip about the recycling event and textile waste situation then upload it on Youku or renren.com which is smilier with Facebook. It is a good method for retailers to spread out the information in order to grab the attention from consumers.

Government:

Government is being a very important role of raising and promoting awareness of recycling activities. The community planning is affecting the awareness of recycling of people. China government dose not place any clothing recycling bin around the society. Collection sites themselves must also be optimized consumer convenience. Value chain stakeholders could also work together with government to test municipal collection schemes. Such as government should place the clothing recycling bin nearby the residential area. [pic 1]

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