Fashion’s Opportunity to Reclaim up to $150 Billion in Lost Textile Value a Year

Textile Waste Hit 120 Million Metric Tons in 2024 and Could Exceed 150 Million Metric Tons Annually Within the Next Five Years New BCG Report Explores How to Scale the Circular Economy and Reclaim Lost Value BOSTON —The world is producing clothes and other textiles at an unprecedented rate—and discarding them just as fast. Of that 7%, less than 1% was made into new fiber. If left unchecked, textile waste could increase to more than 150 million metric tons a year by 2030. A new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), titledSpinning Textile Waste into Value, estimates the total raw material value of unrecovered textile waste to be approximately $150 billion a year. With the right investments to build a large-scale circular textile economy, waste recycling rates could exceed 30%, yielding new fibers with a raw material value of more than $50 billion and creating approximately 180,000 new jobs.