About 53% of global cotton fields are irrigated, producing 73% of global cotton production.
10,000 litres of water is needed to produce one kg of cotton.
Half a million tonnes of plastic microfibers shed during the washing of plastic-based textiles such as polyester, nylon, or acrylic end up in the ocean annually.
Textile mills in and around Dhaka may consume as much groundwater as is supplied to the entire megacity of over 12 million inhabitants.
Textiles rank amongst the top 3 industries for water pollution and water use. In China, the textile industry discharges double the amount of wastewater discharged by the coal industry...
Dyeing and finishing one ton of fabric in China uses up to 200 tons of water.
20% of industrial water pollution globally is attributable to the dyeing and treatment of textiles.
1,214 litres of blue water (water from irrigation as opposed to rain water) is needed to produce 1 kg of lint.
20,000 liters of water is needed to produce one kg of cotton.
11 million garments are being sent to the UK's landfills on a weekly basis.
In Europe, in 2005, about 15-20% of disposed textiles was collected (the rest is landfilled or incinerated), whereof about 50% was downcycled and 50% was reused...
In the UK, around 650,000 tonnes of unwanted clothing are collected annually from different sources including brand take-back schemes.
On average, clothing in the UK lasts for 3.3 years before it is discarded or passed on.
Estimates suggest as much as 95 percent of clothes discarded in the US could be used again—re-worn, reused or recycled—depending on the state of the textile wastes.
The US exported more than 1.68 billion pounds of used clothes valued at more than $681 million.
In the US, less than 20 percent of clothing donations sent to charities are actually resold at those charities.
In the US the recycling rate for textiles in clothing and footwear is 13.6 percent.
In the US, the main source of textiles in municipal solid waste (MSW) is discarded clothing.
US MSW landfills received 11.2 million tons of textiles in 2017. This was 8 percent of all MSW landfilled.
In 2017, the last year for which the EPA has data, the US landfilled or burned 14.32 million tons of textile waste - or about 88 pounds per person.
