Earlier this year, a satellite photo of a mountain of discarded clothes in Chile Atacama Desert went viral.
It was easy to see from space, and it made us think again about how much waste the fashion business makes and what we can do about it.
Some man-made fibers, like polyester and nylon, are not compostable yet, but natural fibers like cotton and wool will break down.
Instead, they will spend the next decades or possibly hundreds of years rotting away in the landfills or other locations where they were placed.
In spite of this, a scientific organization located in the United States is continuing their search for a natural method that will speed up the breakdown of waste polyester and nylon.
Beth Rattner, the executive director of the Biomimicry Institute, which is located in Montana, stated that "one of the approaches that we are looking at is how you break down these complicated materials, and in a way that actually gets rid of the toxic effects of dyes and coating." "Using biological materials, whether that be enzymes or bacteria, to create new materials."
She goes on to say that the objective is to "take the mountains of clothing waste that are currently in existence and turn them into something that is biocompatible."
In the latter half of this year, the Biomimicry Institute initiative, which is known as Design for Decomposition, will identify technology partners, and the institute will report back in 2024.
According to Ms. Rattner, the novel methods that it is investigating have the potential to not only help break down existing fabrics in ways that are better for the environment, but also to, in the future, become the basis of new inventive materials.
"Instead of dyes you could use the structure of the fibre itself, the same for water repellency, rather than coating it, or to make wrinkle-free fabrics."
The word "fast fashion" was first used to describe how quickly clothes went from being designed to being sold. Now, it is used to describe the endless buying of cheap clothes.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation in the UK, which works to get more people to recycle, says that every second enough clothes are thrown away to fill a garbage truck, but only 1% are recovered and made into new clothes.
"More clothes are being made than ever before, yet we are using them less," she adds.
More greenhouse gases are released each year by the fashion industry than by all foreign flights and ships put together.
It is also a significant contributor to biodiversity loss due to soil degradation and waterway pollution caused by raw material production methods and intensive washing and dyeing processes.
