Landfills Are the New Archives
Trends come and go, but fashion’s waste is here to stay. Long after the buzz of a seasonal drop wears off, what remains isn’t a treasured vintage piece - it’s synthetic, discarded, and buried deep in landfill. While runways showcase what’s new, it’s landfills that quietly catalogue what’s been cast aside. A sobering 92 million tonnes of textile waste is discarded every year (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017).
In our endless pursuit of the new, the cheap, and the fleeting, we’ve created a mountain of waste: a cascade of barely-worn garments, made from fibres engineered not to last in wardrobes, but to persist in the environment. These aren’t just rubbish heaps - they're unintentional time capsules, chronicling a culture defined by abundance without accountability.
An Era Defined by Excess
Fashion is no longer simply about aesthetic - it’s about scale. Fast fashion churns out garments at a rate that defies logic, driven by overproduction and overconsumption. Retailers flood the market with weekly drops and aggressive promotions, encouraging us to buy more, wear less, and toss quickly.
The result? An estimated 87% of clothing purchased globally ends up in landfill or incinerated within a year (McKinsey & Company). We are quite literally dressing the earth in garments that were never meant to stay, but now refuse to leave.
Landfills as Fashion’s Final Frontier
If future archaeologists were to unearth the remnants of our epoch, what would they find? Not silk ballgowns or iconic runway looks, but polyester blend T-shirts, elasticated jeans, and promotional tote bags. It won’t be fashion week that defines our legacy it will be what we left behind.
The landfill has become fashion’s final destination - and, disturbingly, its most enduring archive. What was worn for mere moments may remain underground for centuries, whispering stories of a generation enthralled by convenience and caught in the grip of overconsumption.
These garments are not just waste. They’re artefacts that reveal our values, our habits, and our contradictions. They show a world that embraced speed and scale, but struggled with sustainability and slowness.
The Paradox of Permanence
There’s a certain irony - and even a kind of poetic darkness - in the fashion waste that’s mounting in our landfills. What was once beautiful, stylish, and desirable is now garbage, destined to sit in the earth for hundreds of years.
And yet, the materials we use today are anything but fleeting. Synthetics like polyester are built to last far longer than the clothes we care to keep. While the garments we wear may fade out of fashion, the fibres they’re made of won’t fade from the environment.
The data doesn’t lie: 70% of the clothing we buy ends up in landfill, much of it made from synthetic fibres like polyester, which can take up to 200 years to break down (EPA). In a very literal sense, the future of fashion might be written in plastic.
This is the great paradox of fast fashion: it creates garments meant to be short-lived, from materials designed to last forever.
And it’s not just their physical presence that poses a problem. With every wash, synthetic clothing sheds microplastics—tiny plastic particles that seep into our waterways, contaminate our soil, and eventually make their way into our food systems. The European Parliament reports that over 500,000 tonnes of microplastics from synthetic textiles enter the ocean every year.=
Changing the Narrative
Fashion has the power to reflect who we are - but also who we want to become. And right now, there’s a growing movement pushing against this tide of waste. Circular design, regenerative materials, and slow fashion principles are offering a way forward - one where beauty isn’t compromised, but where waste is no longer the inevitable by-product of style.
We can choose to invest in pieces that last, in systems that regenerate, and in values that prioritise responsibility over recklessness.
Fashion’s future isn’t yet written in plastic. But it might be - unless we write a different story.
The ball is in our atelier.
The views, information, and opinions expressed in this article are solely my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of my employer, its parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, or any other organisation or entity with which I am associated.
Any content published here is not endorsed, reviewed, or approved by my employer. All information shared is based on my personal experience and understanding. While I strive for accuracy and currency in all content, I make no representations as to the completeness, reliability, or accuracy of this information.
