About re:threads

In the ever-growing sector of clothing and apparel, fast fashion has dominated the landscape by massively producing apparel and has shaped this generation’s way of wearing clothing by setting an infinite number of constantly shifting trends. While this has been beneficial for a globalization-centered economy, profitable for many individuals and businesses, and affordable for consumers to buy clothing, all of these have come at the cost of both the environment and the average consumer. 

 

U.S. consumers throw away an average of 81.5 pounds of clothes each year. American factories contribute 11.3 million tons of textile waste, which is roughly 85% of all textiles, in landfills annually. Fast fashion companies are also obsessed with using synthetic, petrochemically produced fibers and fabrics due to its low cost, so much that 62% of all fibers produced in 2020 were synthetic. These staggering figures are the direct result of over-consuming fashion. The waste produced ends up not only in landfills, but in the ocean, where 20-35% of microplastics originate. 

 

Over-consumption has led to fashion-related spending to 2.71 trillion dollars and, increasingly, the average consumer has an abundance of clothing in their house such that a piece a clothing is surmised to be worn only 7 times before being discarded. These are all problems that we, our environment, and our society face as a whole; not to mention emissions from transporting the fashion waste, the implications on fish wildlife, emissions from overproduction, and unethical working conditions of workers that mainly affect developing and underdeveloped nations. 

 

Where do we come in? re:threads aims to tackle this issue head-on by introducing and incentivizing people to consume sustainably and to serve as a central hub for all things sustainability in order to consolidate the sustainability movement worldwide. Through our collective efforts, the fashion industry will become circular and every pre-used piece of clothing on our site will become someone else’s new favorite.