It is estimated that more than half of all fast fashion items purchased are disposed of in less than a year. And, in Ireland, we have one of the highest consumption rates of textiles in the EU at 53kg per person each year.
With more than 100 billion new items of clothing made annually and the fast fashion industry accounting for 10 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions – more than the aviation and shipping industries put together – it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the problem of fast fashion.
Yet, the over-production and over-consumption of cheap, low-quality clothing has evolved in the last 25 years, so arguably, it can be reversed in the same length of time or even less.
Right across the world, there is pushback against the fast fashion and ultra-fast fashion industry with countries such as France taking the lead to introduce a €2 per item tax on certain low-cost non-EU fashion parcels from Shein, Temu and other Chinese ecommerce sites.
The European Parliament and EU member states reached an agreement in March 2026 to introduce a fee per package later this year of around €2 on top of the customs fee of €3 on purchases worth up to €150. Approximately 5.9 million such small packages arrived in Europe in 2025 – 90 per cent of which were from China – compared to 1.4 billion in 2022.
At Melbourne Fashion Week in Australia in February, an independent runway, Revive and Thrive, included the innovative Sort for Good designer-led upcycling project showing new possibilities for sustainable fashion. The organisers worked with the SCR Group which diverts up to 94 per cent of collected clothes from landfill for reuse locally or globally.
In Ireland, the Relove Fashion – national sustainable fashion competition for 12- to 19-year-olds had the highest number of entries to date in 2026 with almost 300 outfits completed. Organised by the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun, Dublin, the competition challenges teenagers to create a wearable, washable outfit using clothes from charity shops, swap events or discarded materials in their homes. The 50-plus shortlisted outfits, which showed imaginative reuse of fabrics and high-level sewing skills, were on display in Dublin City University in April for the prize-giving ceremony.
Elzbieta Klonowska from St Louis Community School in Kiltimagh, Co Mayo won the top prize with her outfit, Rock Them Madonna. “I love fashion and feel it should be more sustainable,” she says. Her dress was made from an old black dress, an old skirt and a curtain.
Other outfits were made from everything from ties, scarves and shirts to shower curtains and table cloths. Students used beading, appliqué, 3D embroidery and natural dying to create their garments. Many spoke about how charity shops are now where they buy most of their clothes.
Grainne Lambert, Arran Murphy and Claire Downey, from Rediscovery Centre. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Aaran Murphy, Rediscover Fashion programme manager at the Rediscovery Centre, says the competition offers younger people a chance to learn the skills in repairing and reusing clothes, repurposing jackets, old jumpers, T-shirts, old wedding dresses and much more.
Murphy says the first thing she recommends people to do to push back on fast fashion is to “shop in their own wardrobes”.
“Maybe spend an evening trying clothes on with different things together, styling things a bit differently – putting a belt on, wearing a jacket or a shirt a certain way,” says Murphy.
Conscious that many items get left aside because they don’t fit properly, she encourages people to go to sewing classes. “There is a real joy is showing people how to fix things,” says Murphy. Sewing workshops are run by organisations including the Rediscovery Centre, the Roscommon Women’s Network and Mary Fleming from Changeclothes.org.
Spreading the message about the environmental damage caused by unwanted clothes to young people was the aim of Losing the Thread: The Cost of Fast Fashion, the short film made by the four Dublin local authorities in 2025. Now on the mywaste.ie website as part of the Reverse The Trend campaign to buy less, re-wear and share, it is part of the Government’s wider efforts to tackle fast fashion and textile waste.
And while the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent National Textile Survey contains lots of concerning statistics, it also offers some hope.
Hannah Phipps, with her Victorian Vibe, at the Relove Fashion final. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill 
Many students in the fashion competition spoke about how charity shops are now where they buy most of their clothes. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
The survey revealed that one in four adults buy clothes they never wear or only wear a few times, yet 63 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds regularly share or pass on clothes to family or friends.
[ Clothes waste: How to be part of the solution, not the problemOpens in new window ]
The survey also found that 25 per cent of women under 35 said they regularly used a clothing rental service rather than buying more. The national average for using a clothing rental service is just 8 per cent.
Seventy per cent of women and 60 per cent of men under 35 also said that they would like to repair clothes but don’t have the required equipment or skills.
Ireland’s first National Policy Statement and Roadmap on Circular Textiles, published in April, is another indication that change is afoot. While it clearly acknowledges the multifaceted issues with fast fashion – the huge volumes of water, energy, chemical and synthetic materials used to produce garments that are often only worn a few times before being discarded – it also aims to fund reuse/repair initiatives within the retail sector and look at possibilities to develop sorting and reuse facilities in Ireland. Currently, all second-hand clothing not sold in charity shops here is exported for reuse, recycling or dumping.
“The Roadmap is exciting because it puts reducing consumption first, followed by repair and reuse,” says Claire Downey, chief executive of the Rediscovery Centre. She says the key is to bring producers into the conversation. “They will be legally obliged to pay for the clothes they put on the market from 2027 through the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme for textiles. They will have to think more about durability in how they design their clothes,” she adds. Take-back schemes in clothing stores could also rise as part of this EPR scheme.
An earlier EPA survey found that 58 per cent of people are interested in using take-back schemes for clothing and 57 per cent are interested in clothing made from recycled materials.
One of many entries at the Relove Fashion competition. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill 
Students present sustainable outfits made from second-hand or unwanted textiles in the Relove Fashion competition. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Conscious that there is consumer pushback against over-supply of cheap clothing resulting in garments that are unsaleable in the second-hand market, some manufacturers have seen their efforts to introduce recycled content into their clothing brands backfire over more microfibres being released into the environment when recycled clothes get washed.
Nobody is saying that solving the problems of fast fashion will be easy. And innovators in textile recycling across Europe have struggled to make new materials good enough to compete with virgin fabrics.
Yet, the genie is out of the bottle and the EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will include a digital product passport for clothing so that consumers will have information about materials in their clothes, their environmental impact and disposal recommendations. Maybe this will drive manufacturers to look more seriously at creating more durable clothing for the future.
But we the consumers will have to be prepared to pay more for clothes and share or sell them on when we’re finished with them.
What consumers can do to reduce the impact of fast fashion
Students used beading, applique, 3D embroidery and natural dying to create their garments. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Buy Less
Check your wardrobe to see if you really need something new before going clothes shopping. Mix and match by trying different things on together and only buy something that will add value to what you already have.
Choose better quality
Buy more durable clothing made from natural fibres or try new sustainable fabrics such as Tencel bamboo yarn.
Learn to repair
Go to a sewing class to learn how to repair your clothing or use local repair services. Repairmystuff.ie and cycleup.ie Michelle Power offers online and in person workshops www.wrenandmabel.ie.
Consider swaps
Share clothes with friends and family or partake in a pop-up clothes swap. Dublin-based groups can borrow the community clothes swap kit to run community swap events. See changeclothes.org
Look up clothes rentals
Rent rather than buy for special occasions. See Theragrevolution.com
Check second-hand first
Check out what’s on offer in vintage and charity shops before buying new. See circulardresscollaborative.com for curated preloved branded clothes. Bring your unwanted clothing to charity shops or use charity-branded clothing banks such as Oxfam, Enable Ireland or St Vincent de Paul. Also see charityretail.ie.