Time to Quench Fashion’s Thirst for Water

While it is widely known that the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry after oil and gas, it is also heavily reliant on the earth’s most natural resource – water. From polluting rivers and oceans with chemicals and dyes to using excessive amounts of water to grow and produce the industry’s raw materials.  

Recent statistics reveal the extent of the issue:

–  The fashion industry uses enough water to end the thirst of 110 million people for an entire year.

–  Scientists estimate that textiles produce 35% of the global ocean’s microplastic pollution, making textiles the largest known source of marine microplastic pollution.

– The fashion industry currently uses around 93 billion cubic meters of water per year (4% of all freshwater extraction globally)

– Cultivating just one kg of raw cotton takes 2,600 – 5,200 gallons of water.

– Processing a kg of fiber requires 26 to 40 gallons of water.

While fashion brands are starting to address the problem within their own supply chains we can all do our small bit by adapting how we care for our clothes and textiles at home.

Global clothing brand H&M advise on a conscious washing routine with the following tips:

– Don’t wash clothes unnecessarily

Don’t wash clothes that are not dirty. Often, airing and brushing clothes is enough.

– Lower the washing temperature

H&M always labels its garments with the highest permitted temperature. But you can select a lower washing temperature to save energy. Most detergents wash just as well at lower temperatures. Washing at 40°C uses around half as much energy as washing at 60°C. 

– Sort clothes and wash full loads

Sort clothes by colour and washing temperature. H&M recommends that heavily soiled clothes and underwear are machine washed, but don’t stuff too much in. A washing machine is full when you can place a clenched fist on top of the washing without compressing the clothes. Use an energy saving programme – most modern washing machines have one.

– Choose a more eco-friendly laundry detergent

Use a more environmentally friendly detergent that is free from optical whiteners and phosphates, since these have a negative environmental impact when released into nature. Dose the detergent as stated on the packaging. Overdosing detergent will not make your clothes cleaner. To get the dose right, you need to know whether you have hard or soft water.

Avoid fabric conditioners, although H&M recommends that acrylic garments are washed with fabric conditioner to counter static electricity in the garment after washing.

– Avoid dry cleaning

Dry cleaning is a process in which the clothes are cleaned using an organic solvent. Dry cleaning has a negative environmental impact when the solvent is released into nature. A small proportion of H&M’s garments are dry clean only, because they contain details or materials that could change colour or become misshapen by washing at home. Today, there are also greener methods of dry cleaning that clean the clothes using only carbon dioxide reclaimed from industry or use steam.

– Leave your washing out to dry

It is preferable to leave your washing out to dry since tumble drying and drying cabinets use a lot of energy. If you do need to use tumble dryers try to reduce drying time and the heat setting.

For clothing brands the Common Objective suggest the following to help with water footprint reduction:

• Sourcing sustainably produced cotton via international standards and farming programmes – for example, GOTS or Fairtrade certification, or the Better Cotton Initiative.

• Working with production sites that recycle or re-use effluent water from processing.

• Working with industry partners to reduce and remove water use from dyeing, stone-washing and finishing processes.

• Providing clear instructions to consumers to reduce the amount of water and energy use.

While it may seem like we have water in plentiful supply the earth’s population is constantly growing and scientists predict that the demand for fresh, unpolluted water will become the earth’s most valuable resource in years to come.