A solution for a sustainable fashion industry | Fredrik Wikholm | TEDxGöteborg

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Every year we throw away 30 kg of clothes, and the textile industry is one of the world’s top 5 polluters. So, how can we make the fashion industry more sustainable?
It’s easy, claims social scientist and Creative Director Fredrik Wikholm, we just need ethics, environment and economics to be buddies. With his new innovation “The Rag Bag” Fredrik challenges the business to take action now, before it’s too late.

It was the creative mindset and will to change, rather than skills in textile design that brought Fredrik Wikholm and his snowboard collective to start up a fashion brand that focused on sustainability. Now he’s taking recycling to the next level with an open-source innovation institute to pave ways for the fashion industry to make more sustainable choices.

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[johnmccarthy]

Myself a manufacturer from Tirupur, India, I export around 200 tonnes of garments yearly. In my city, we have two main types of cotton yarn mills, one a conventional spinning mill and another an Open-End mill where we turn back the wastes from fabric cutting into yarn again(If you don't know, only 70-80% of fabric is turned into garment and exported mostly, remaining small bits in between the sewing patterns in the lay are left out and we call it "Waste"). As India is a huge market and price-sensitive, there are several factories that make garments from those recycled fabrics for the Indian market. Now, a lot of used garments from developed nations are used to make recycled yarn and again sold in the Indian market & few percentages are exported if they have some kind of certification to prove that it is recycled yarn. To my knowledge, we have been doing this for ages and Along with recycling, what needs to be done for the betterment of the environment is "BUY LESS, BUY THE BEST AND PASS OLDIES TO PEOPLE IN NEED". Don't buy because it is cheap, don't but because it is in an offer, don't buy because you can.

[saraal-mughrabi]

Thank you for this talk. May I know what material those bags are made of? Also, it is not enough for people to donate clothing and continue to justify their addiction to fast fashion. Where will these donated clothes go? From what I know, here in the US most of the donated clothes actually end up in developing countries, hurting the local textile industries. Shouldn't people be buying less, buying clothing that lasts longer, lessening the need to donate and throw away? The bag is definitely a start, but consumers need to take even more responsibility.

[lovethriftusa]

Great talk on a very important subject. It's important to make the fashion industry more sustainable, but also doing so without losing the millions of jobs people rely on.

[horsestalesandtails]

This talk should be titled: Much Ado about Nothing; donating clothes is not a new idea, and it's much more sustainable to donate to a local shop.

[priyankapalanisamy]

Removing of fast fashion, adopting to hand crafting methods... accepting slow fashion...!!!! May be a suggestion...!!!!

[vigorplus]

Most of Garment fabrics are Recyclable except coated fabrics, we are providing high value recyclable coated fabrics.

[Name-pbgf]

Donate to who? to the same huge companies who create plastic (waste) clothing with the help of child slaves in Asia? first they create the problem and then they want to solve it by earning even more money because buying sustainably recycled clothes are more expensive for us. The cycle continues.. we buy (sustainably recycled) plastic clothes then we donate to the same companies and they sell these sustainably recycled clothes back to us even more expensive cuz u know it is sustainable! I'm just glad this video is old

[justchill]

Environmental sustainability is eyewash, industry have all the document to manage buyers. Some factory has policy of zero discharge but actually they don't run etp in general but run only in the time when buyer visit. In name of sustainability LEED, Higg etc. is done by only means of document but the related infrastructure is not available in most of the factory.

[yesthisislily]

you're supposedly concerned about the environment, yet you're asking people to use plastic bags ??? this sounds like nothing more than you advertising your business.

[shajimathew]

Most boring one. He doesn't know anything abt textile