Sportswear: The Oft-Overlooked Mega Contributor to Fashion Waste

Coming to the project itself. Why clothing waste from only football? Cricket is also a favourite sport in the UK. There surely is waste in the form of tees and flags at least.
Lindsay Pressdee: Football is just the start; this project will potentially work with any sport.

Transforming surplus football shirts into unique reusable tote bags. It is recycling — deferring the journey to the landfill and not biodegradable. How much does that help the environment? Or, do you think it becomes a delaying tactic, in the sense that those would eventually go to a landfill?
Lindsay Pressdee: If you look at the R Ladder, this is one of the first steps towards circularity. One of the key principles of the circular economy is to recycle used or unused materials to reuse them in the creation of new objects. Our research investigates the issues surrounding polyester sports garments and tackles the invisible sources and routes these garments take into the waste stream.

What steps are being taken to educate communities on the environmental impacts of textile waste and how the life of garments can be extended? What has been the response this far? How many areas are being covered?
Lindsay Pressdee: We are also creating an educational opportunity to engage with communities and schools to build awareness and skills with the next generation of consumers into recycling, repurposing, and garment circularity. The project aims to provide a fun, responsible way to keep kits in circulation while shining a light on the large-scale problem in the industry.

The response has been fantastic. On participant said, “I really enjoyed the creativity and the positive impact it left on not only me, but the environment.“

Reintroduce textiles as part of the school curriculum to engage young people in sustainable materials and arm them with the basic skills required to repair clothes — a good step. But what about availability and costs? What steps are being taken in this direction?
Lindsay Pressdee: At the moment this issue appears to be on the back burner, as it is not an election issue. However, we will continue to raise the conversation about textiles on the NC and the skills shortage and how this can contribute to sustainability and future skills.

We also need the government to lead the change to end the throwaway society. It is sadly often more expensive to repair an item of clothing than buy a new one. Unfortunately, many people also lack the skills to perform basic clothing repairs meaning clothes like football kits just get thrown away. In 2017, the government removed the standalone GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) in textiles, and instead combined all technologies into a generalised GCSE.

This has reduced the number of students going into the field and reduced the breadth of skills they would have previously gained, which enabled them to move onto high education and employment. We are, therefore, calling on the UK government to reintroduce textiles as part of the school curriculum to engage young people in sustainable materials and arm them with the basic skills required to repair clothes.

The UK is at the forefront of textile design, and accounts 6% to the UK economy. We are surrounded by textiles—from furniture to garments, car interiors and costume. We need to enable the industry to grow with a skilled workforce. Industry and government (local and central) engagement is key to ensuring new policy measures work in harmony with developments in international policy, such as the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles. A holistic approach is needed if we are going to see positive change and a multi stakeholder approach, that also considers education and community engagement, is going to help drive a more sustainable future.

How do you think change can be brought about to end the throwaway culture? That probably is at the root of the problem, isn't it?
Lindsay Pressdee: We tend to think of this project as a signpost towards sustainable behaviours.

Behaviour change is a long game, but we are starting to see changes in buying behaviour. Careful communication by brands and encouraging consumers to buy better, wear longer and wear better are filtering through.

We are interested in sustainable communication and marketing, using tools like storytelling, testimonials, celebrity influencers (there can be sports personalities too) and careful use of the correct facts to avoid greenwashing, can start to make a valuable contribution to this as well.

It is difficult to distinguish between 'blame' and 'responsibility', but it is important to establish sustainable behaviour throughout the supply chain. Leading the way on this, the European Commission has proposed extended producer responsibility (EPR) for textiles in the EU to encourage producers to assume responsibility. The concept of producer responsibility aims to create appropriate incentives to encourage producers to design products that have a reduced environmental impact at the end of their life.

EPR focuses on encouraging producers to take responsibility. In an ideal scenario, everyone throughout the supply chain will take responsibility. We argue that tackling sustainability in the fashion industry needs to be put back on the political agenda. Unfortunately, there has been a lack of progress from the UK government following the EAC's Fixing Fashion report in 2019 which included a call for the use of EPR. We urge the government to drive forward the committee’s recommendations in order to put sustainable fashion back on the political agenda.