Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of recycling infrastructure in handling textile waste from fast fashion.

While we do not hold any internal estimates on fast fashion waste volumes in the UK, industry partners provide some insight. WRAP estimates that the UK generated approximately 1.45 million tonnes of post-consumer textiles in 2022, which includes clothing, household linens and more. WRAP-Textiles-Market-Situation-Report-2024.pdf

WRAP does not isolate a proportion of this as fast fashion. However, they note that low-quality textile goods are saturating secondary markets, with the average person in the UK throwing 35 items of unwanted textiles straight into the general waste each year, demonstrating the fast turnover of clothing. The price of our addiction to cheap fast fashion as pressure builds on UK second hand clothing market | WRAP - The Waste and Resources Action Programme

Meanwhile, figures from BusinessWaste indicate that 300,000 tonnes of clothing waste enter household bins annually in the UK, with much of this likely being fast fashion. Fashion Waste Statistics & Facts | Textile & Clothing Waste Facts

The department hasn't made any recent assessments on the effectiveness of recycling infrastructure, however we continue to monitor evidence. Within the Circular Economy Strategy, the Government is developing policy measures to improve circularity in the textiles sector.