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Circular fashion promoted by Hong Kong charities to reduce volume of clothing thrown away
- Secondhand clothing sales and swap meets are among the ways Hong Kong charities are trying to cut textile waste and promote circular fashion
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The 16-tonne mountain of clothes, spread several metres high and wide on the 11th floor of an office tower in Hong Kong’s Quarry Bay district, is a jaw-dropping sight.
Sifting through it are volunteers taking part in a three-day “Sort-A-Thon” organised by Redress, a Hong Kong-based charity that raises awareness about the fashion industry’s damaging environmental impact.
The floor in Lincoln House is a hive of activity as garments are sorted into boxes labelled according to category, from baby clothes and business shirts to shoes and sportswear. Others are marked “summer” and “winter”, while top-quality pieces end up in resale boxes.
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The scale of the pile may be shocking, but the director of Redress’ circular fashion programme, Aurianne Ricquier, says it represents just a fraction of the volume of waste textiles thrown away in Hong Kong every day.
“In 2022, an average of 388 tonnes (428 tons) of textiles were discarded into Hong Kong landfills every day, with 50 per cent estimated to be clothes,” Ricquier says. A 2020 Redress report on consumer usage and disposal habits found that two out of five Hongkongers discard their clothes after wearing them for a year or less, she notes.
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