this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
134 points (99.3% liked)

Australia

3608 readers
156 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
lodion@aussie.zone
Fluid@aussie.zone
bestusername@aussie.zone
eatham@aussie.zone
134
In Australia 6,000kg of clothing is dumped in landfill every 10 minutes. This is the life cycle of polyester T-shirt (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 1 year ago by Wiggles@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone
32 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Many of us are now dressed head to toe in plastic.

A textile derived from the same non-renewable source as takeaway containers, has grown to make up more than half of the clothes bought in Australia.

Polyester is durable, cheap, and dries quickly. It’s also easy to print patterns on.

It’s commonly used by itself or as a blend with other textiles. It’s used for gym clothes and sports uniforms, party dresses, work attire, and many cheap fast fashion items.

And every purchase is taking an environmental toll.

One Australian study by RMIT found a single 100 per cent polyester T-shirt has a carbon footprint — from creation through to when you dump it in the bin — equivalent to 20.56 kilograms of CO2 emissions (CO2e).

That’s equivalent to driving 140 kilometres. Buy just six tops, and that gets you all the way from Melbourne to Sydney.

So, what’s involved in getting a T-shirt from a fossil fuel, to the one you might be wearing right now? Here’s its journey along the supply chain.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Fluid@aussie.zone 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Systemic problems require systemic solutions. Enough of this cop-out environmental policy of shifting blame to consumers, we need to put the onus on producers and importers.

[–] otl@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Agreed. Why can I buy this t-shirt for $4.50? https://www.kmart.com.au/product/plain-crew-neck-tee-s140827/

[–] veroxii@aussie.zone 5 points 1 year ago

Also those shirts are so shit that after a few dozen times of wearing the neck is all stretched and curly and look like crap that you essentially have to throw it out (or repurpose as a rag)

[–] theragu40@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

American here...is Kmart still a thing in Australia? That's kinda crazy to me. It all but died out many years ago here in the US. I'm not sure if there are any left.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It may or may not be the same company you're familiar with.

We've got a company called Target. Even has the same logo as your Target. But the two are actually entirely unrelated, apart from the fact that they seem to share the same name and logo. I wonder if Kmart might be a similar situation.

But yes, Kmart is very much still a thing. They're by a pretty wide margin our largest department store, I believe.

[–] theragu40@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Oh wow. I suppose it's probably what you say - they share a logo and name but are completely separate otherwise.

Here they became synonymous with a worse version of things. Like saying that you bought the "Kmart version" would be a derogatory comment on an item's quality or imply it is a knockoff. That hastened their death spiral.

[–] otl@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

Absolutely - and there's way more of them now than 10 years ago! Shit quality, disposable, cheap stuff. Popular for clothes, homewares, small furniture, bits and pieces for around the house.