Nearly half (44%) of every T-shirt goes to waste before you even buy it

About a year ago, I researched the most comfortable T-shirt. There were quite a few people who mentioned this specific brand I’d never heard of so I bought about 10 shirts and was sorely disappointed—-I got had by a smart marketer I think.

But a few other people mentioned the Peruvian Pima cotton shirts that are sometimes available at Costco. Generally they show up once per year, in February.

So when they finally showed up, I bought 11. I didn’t realize, until I had these shirts, that I’d never really owned comfortable T-shirts. I’ve worn these every day since I bought them and cannot recommend them enough.

Friends don’t let friends wear crappy cotton.

Post-industrial recycling tends to be much more efficient than post-consumer recyling since the inputs tend to be much more uniform. Wasted fiber costs manufacturers a lot of money -- more efficient operation will go straight to their bottom line.

In other words, this is a case where governments should focus on research, not regulation. Manufacturers may not have the money to do the research themselves, but are highly incentivized to incorporate the improvements if somebody else figures it out for them.

As a home sewist, I'm surprised to hear the 44% figure on an industrial scale. If I made one T-shirt at home, it might result in up to 50% offcuts? With all sleeves cut out of one bolt in alternating warp direction (~tessellated) and all rectangularish body pieces cut from another and ribbons of binding from another, I wouldn't expect to see more than 10-20% offcuts. And then home home sewists often shred the offcuts and use them to stuff other projects, which should be easier to do and funnel to the right place. I didn't try very hard to access the original paper but count me a bit skeptical and confused.

Manufacturers are already highly incentivized to reduce material waste. It’s their profit margin! Unless of course it’s so cheap and abundant it doesn’t matter.

And the article didn’t identify an externality concern either.

I visited the local waste processing plant to learn about the basics in general and have some insights on what could I do for better recycling.

Clothing is the worst offender here. Impossible to recycle. The quality would not be good enough and the price is too high. It is a huge waste of resources.

Upcycling (e.g. repurposing) works with some materials, though, however, with very low efficiency.

Europe is moving towards reducing fast fashion therefore. This is a good thing in general, but I don't see this change in the US / Asia. And very slowly also in Europe.

I would be interested to know how much of that is scrap from cutting out patterns. That should be very easy to recycle, I'd think.

no, it doesn't, article doesn't provide any proof for such claim other than that old T-Shirts are not recycled, that's like saying 70% of every car goes into waste before you even buy it just because new car doesn't use recycled resources from old cars

"“We took a closer look at what happens to the fibres in a cotton T-shirt over the course of two consecutive life cycles. We combined a material flow model with a life cycle assessment,” said Ahmed."

very confusing article, practically whole article talks about using recycled old garments/T-shirts and not about scraps during T-shirt production

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Wait until they hear how much source code is thrown away to make software! I guess that's a bit ephemeral, but still probably similar in a lot of industries.

Clothes are weird shaped, weaves are rectilinear, it's a pretty tricky problem to solve. Unless someone manages to invent a non-rectilinear robot loom or something?