The Australia Institute, a public policy think tank, has called on the country’s government to regulate the fast fashion industry as the consumption of textile waste almost surpasses that of the US.

In a new discussion paper entitled ‘Textiles waste in Australia’, Nina Gbor, the institute’s director of the Circular Economy and Waste programme, highlighted the increasing extent to which the country’s textile industry is producing waste. The report starts with the damning figure that every year over 300,000 tonnes of clothing is either sent to landfill or exported from Australia.

This was later coupled with new data from Australia’s National Waste report, issued in 2020-21, which stated that the average Australian buys 56 new items of clothing each year, making the country the largest consumer of clothing in the world per capita behind the US.

Gbor, and her co-writer Anne Kantor fellow Olivia Chollet, said that while the Australian Commonwealth has proposed policies with the goal of creating a circular economy, certain measures needed to be put into place in order to effectively carry out such a mission.

‘Fast fashion’ tax, labelling standards and goal to ban textile exports among requests

The duo write: “This paper argues that investment in domestic manufacturing and recycling infrastructure, and ensuring a market for recycled textile products is essential to the establishment of a circular economy.

“If the policies aimed at creating a circular economy are to be more than greenwash, the meaningful regulation and taxation of problematic textiles is needed, as is substantial investment in more environmentally and socially responsible alternatives.”

As such, the paper recommends that the government establish targets for a drastic reduction in the consumption of textiles and the introduction of a tax on ‘fast fashion’ items put on the local market, following the example of the newly introduced regulations in France.

Other requests include that of a ban on fast fashion advertisements, the formation of labelling standards that educate consumers on ecological footprint, subsidisation on the cost of textile repairs for consumers and the goal of banning the export of textile waste from Australia to be achieved within five years.