Japan to Draw Up Action Plan to Reduce Clothing Waste

Tokyo, Jan. 4 (Jiji Press)—Japan’s Environment Ministry plans to compile by March an action plan aimed at reducing large amounts of clothing waste from households. The action plan is expected to include measures that should be taken by consumers, local governments and businesses at a time when large parts of used clothes from households are disposed of as waste. The ministry hopes to promote effective use of secondhand clothing and encourage production and consumption of appropriate amounts of clothing in a shift from the current situation in which large volumes of clothing are produced and consumed. According to the ministry’s estimate based on data for 2024, households in Japan bought a total of 770,000 tons of clothes in the year while 480,000 tons were disposed of as waste. Including part of recovered clothing, about 510,000 tons were incinerated or used for landfill. In contrast, reuse of secondhand clothes and recycling of fibers from discarded clothing have been slow, because the reuse market has not developed and recycling is difficult as many kinds of fibers are used as materials of clothing. The environmental burden related to clothing is heavy because massive amounts of energy and water are required for production and disposal and the time between purchase and disposal is becoming shorter due to clothing items becoming cheaper. The Japanese government has set a target of reducing the amount of clothing discarded from households by 25 pct by fiscal 2030 from the level in fiscal 2020. As the rate of reduction stands below 2 pct at present, however, the Environment Ministry aims to beef up the efforts to whittle down clothing waste from households through the envisaged action plan. Citing challenges such as establishing a system to collect discarded clothes for recycling and designing clothing items that are easy to be recycled, the action plan would show measures that need to be taken by consumers, local governments and businesses, according to informed sources. The action plan would also include numerical targets regarding how much of the 25 pct reduction should be achieved each by reducing clothing waste from households and by reusing and recycling secondhand clothes, the sources said. “We would like to advise people to recycle used clothing items from major housecleaning work as resources instead of discarding them,” a ministry official said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]