The global apparel industry is a significant yet overlooked source of plastic leakage

Anna Kounina (), Jesse Daystar, Sophie Chalumeau, Jon Devine, Roland Geyer, Steven T. Pires, Shreya Uday Sonar, Richard A. Venditti and Julien Boucher
Additional contact information
Anna Kounina: Quantis Switzerland
Jesse Daystar: Cotton Incorporated
Sophie Chalumeau: Quantis Switzerland
Jon Devine: Cotton Incorporated
Roland Geyer: University of California
Steven T. Pires: Cotton Incorporated
Shreya Uday Sonar: Quantis United States
Richard A. Venditti: North Carolina State University
Julien Boucher: EA - Earth Action

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Plastic pollution is a global environmental threat with potentially irreversible impacts on aquatic life, ecosystems, and human health. This study is a comprehensive assessment of the global apparel industry’s contribution to plastic pollution. It includes plastic leakage of packaging and end-of-life apparel waste in addition to fiber emissions during apparel production and use. We estimate that the apparel industry generated 8.3 [4.8–12.3] million tons (Mt) of plastic pollution in 2019, corresponding to 14% [5.5%–30%] of the estimated 60 Mt from all sectors. In this study, we demonstrate that the main source of plastic pollution from the apparel supply chain is synthetic clothing as mismanaged waste either in the country of its original use or in the countries receiving used apparel exports. A fundamental transformation of the apparel economy towards a circular framework and decreased synthetic apparel consumption is needed to tackle apparel-related plastic pollution.

Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49441-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-49441-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49441-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().