The Ministry of Environment is drafting measures to encourage clothing brands to use singular and recyclable materials, as well as establishing a “clothing-to-clothing” chemical recycling model as textile waste fast fashion exacerbates the problem of textile waste.
Domestic used clothing stations across the nation saw volumes increase from about 37,000 tonnes in 2013 to 82,000 in 2022, ministry data showed.
About 36 percent of the used clothes went straight to incinerators, 22 percent were downcycled and 42 percent went to second-hand donation facilities, the ministry said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Environment
Taiwan can recycle used clothing fibers and use those fibers to make new clothing, but the process is more complicated if the clothes used multiple materials, Lee Yi-hua (李宜樺), head of the ministry’s Sustainable Consumption and Recycling Division, said on Saturday.
The ministry is trying to encourage clothing brand manufacturers to begin using single types of materials, preferably recycled materials, when making clothing items, Lee added.
The ministry is also urging clothing distributors to offer recycling, remaking or “shared clothing” services, and is mulling a general ban on distributors destroying any excess clothing in storage, he said.
It also hopes that distributors would be willing to sell second-hand clothing, he added.
The ministry is considering standards, to be available as early as next month, that would offer official suggestions for “green” clothing options for sectors that need to place large orders for uniforms, such as banks or transportation companies.
However, Shu-Te University Department of Fashion Design professor Chu Wei-cheng (朱維政) said that making clothing entirely from one material was more difficult.
Blending polyester fibers and cottons makes for more comfortable and fashionable wear, Chu said, adding that clothes often need to include metallic objects in the form of buttons or zippers.
The clothing recycling industry would only benefit when polyester fibers become as skin-friendly as 100 percent cotton materials, absolving the need to mix fabrics, he said.
Asked for comment, clothing manufacturers said there are multiple processes involved when a piece of clothing is recycled, meaning that recycled materials are about 30 percent more expensive than original materials.
Consumers might not be as willing to buy clothes when that cost is reflected in the selling price, a manufacturer said, adding that sourcing enough used clothes for a “clothing to clothing” recycling system might be a problem.
Despite the difficulties, clothing manufacturers beginning to incorporate recycled materials is an international trend, and the clothing industry would have to come up with solutions to address the issue, the manufacturer said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS