26 million tons of clothing end up in China’s landfills each year, propelled by fast fashion
Posted on AllSides July 11th, 2024
From The Left
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AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
At a factory in Zhejiang province on China’s eastern coast, two mounds of discarded cotton clothing and bed linens, loosely separated into dark and light colors, pile up on a workroom floor. Jacket sleeves, collars and brand labels protrude from the stacks as workers feed the garments into shredding machines.
It’s the first stage of a new life for the textiles, part of a recycling effort at the Wenzhou Tiancheng Textile Company, one of the largest cotton recycling plants in China.
Textile waste is an urgent global problem, with only 12% recycled worldwide, according...