A simplified clothing system was simulated to analyse the impact of increased clothing reuse. More specific, the consumption of new clothes was evaluated under varying conditions including increased clothing reuse, increased technical lifetime, better textile waste separation, higher random consumption and excess wardrobe capacity.
The results show that a clothing system with durable clothes has the potential to reduce the consumption of new clothes substantially. However, that requires that the extra wears they provide are realized. Increasing the user lifetime of the garments (making timeless clothes), reducing the wardrobe size (increasing the use frequency) or improving the reuse system are possible strategies to accomplish this. Interestingly, the first two focus on keeping clothes in a single-use cycle.
Reusable clothes with many remaining wears have the highest potential to reduce the consumption of new clothes. Lowering the loss of these clothes within the clothing system is therefore key. Nonetheless, without sufficient demand for secondhand clothes, efforts to increase supply will stay fruitless. Increasing demand, however, should not lead to larger wardrobes, but rather redirect customer demand from new to secondhand items.
A reuse system characterized by perfect sorting and a high willingness to purchase secondhand could, in principle, sustain a system with high material outflows (i.e. rapid consumption or short user lifecycles). However, this requires clothes to keep their value throughout multiple use cycles, which is questionable. In addition, such a system results in large material flows circulating within society, which increases the impact of the reuse value chain.