Kerry McCarthy Labour MP for Bristol East
It’s time to end the era of throwaway fashion. That’s the key recommendation of this morning’s Environmental Audit Committee report into clothing consumption and sustainability, with which I’ve been involved as a committee member.
Over the past six months we’ve heard about the huge social and environmental cost of clothing across the world, from plastic pollution to shocking working conditions and carbon emissions. Here in the UK, we throw out over a million tonnes of textiles a year – with £140m worth of clothing going to landfill.
Fashion shouldn’t cost the earth and to fix that we are calling on the Government to introduce greater producer responsibility for clothing collection, reward companies that offer clothing repairs, and strengthen the Modern Slavery Act to ensure forced labour is banished from the supply chain. You can read the report here.
