Recherchetool für Materialien

Research Tool for Materials

The materials database contains media on our key topics of working conditions in the textile and clothing industry and the environmental impact of clothing. The types of media include studies, guidelines and reports, as well as films, podcasts and web tools.

 

List of materials

 

The fashion supply chain is being challenged by a rising global population, increasing wealth and consumerism in the emerging markets, and the phenomenon of fast consumption in the developed world. Enormous strains are put on natural resources to keep up with consumer demand and solutions are needed for the massive waste flows downstream. Currently the main solutions for garments that cannot be reused are landfill, incineration for energy recovery, and downcycling. The latter is the recycling of garments into lower value products, such as insulation or wipers. Landfill and incineration cost money and these options do not deal with the natural resources issue since they do not displace the virgin fibre textiles industry. Downcycling does displaced virgin fibre production, but applications have low profitability. High value recycling or ‘garment to garment recycling’is the concept of recycling used garments and textile waste into new garment products. This concept can reduce some of the pressure on virgin resources, while at the same adding value to waste to make recycling profitable for companies. This research assessed the environmental performance of two garment to garment recycling systems and one scenario as well as one downcycling system, in comparison with their equivalent ones made from virgin materials. The approach was based on life cycle assessment, and the impact categories selected were climate change, acidification, eutrophication and water consumption. The study included primary data from different processes in the life cycle, including mechanical and chemical recycling, textile collection and manual and automated sorting.

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The transnational networking of our global economy poses many challenges for the protection of human rights. The catastrophic conditions in the textile industry, which led to misfortunes such as the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh in 2013, or the slavery-like conditions under which guest workers work in Qatar in the context of the 2022 World Cup, are only the tip of the iceberg that reaches public perception in Germany.

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This edited collection critically explores the efforts of the apparel industry to improve safety conditions and suggest governance reforms that will resolve lingering issues. The volume examines two consortia: the Alliance and the Accord, which set up cooperative auditing systems of supplying factories and penalties for non-compliance, and include funding to help factories comply and for workers if factories are idled during repairs, although the editors raise doubts about the long-lasting value of such efforts. In the wake of the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, leading researchers across labor relations and industry studies tackle and debate such issues, giving their perspective of how multinationals operating in developing countries should regulate labor standards in order to resolve and improve the substandard working conditions under which much of our clothing is made.

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