Clothing is the leading cause of landfills in America

Question

With all these new fashion trends flowing in and out of style, where does all the old stuff go? The EPA wrote an article with graphs and data providing information about how the constant rotation of clothing has created landfills. 

They estimated a whopping 17 million tons of textiles in 2018, while the recycling was only 14.8%. With receiving 11.8 million tons of textiles to landfills, these numbers show that the textiles being produced in today’s world are mainly going into landfills rather than being recycled.  

https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/textiles-material-specific-data  

Answer 1

One of the sources linked is from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which is a federal agency, so it should be a credible source, but due to political influence can sometimes be questioned. However, the second source linked is from the BU School of Public Health, which is known to be very credible. 

In the BU article, it states that fast fashion is one of the most impactful influences on landfills. As the quality is too low to be used for anything else, and people just keep buying to keep up with the trends, and then once they are done with it, it just goes straight to the landfill. 

Although clothing is adding to the problem, it is not the leading cause of landfills in America. The leading cause is food waste. "Food is the single largest component taking up space inside US landfills, making up 22 percent of municipal solid waste." https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/

Answer 2

The claim "Clothing is the leading cause of landfills in America" is false. Yes, clothing is a significant contributor to landfill waste in America, but it is not considered the MAIN cause of landfills in America. Shown on this pie chart on the EPA website, in 2018, food waste is the largest component of landfill at 24%, plastics come in at 18.5% and textile (clothing, fabrics, etc) comes in at less than 10%. This means that clothing/textiles matter in the landfill picture, but they are not the dominant material - food and plastics are larger by weight. With that said, because textiles are relatively resource-intensive, reducing or reusing clothing has outsized environmental benefits beyond just landfill space. 

Article 

national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials

Answer 3

This is an overstatement. The data shows that clothing and other textiles are a large portion of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), but it is not the "leading cause" of landfills in the U.S. according the the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2018 about 11.3 million tons of textiles were landfilled, accounting for around 7.7% of all MSW landfilled that year.

While that is a significant portion of waste, it means 92.3% of landfilled MSW was something other than textiles. Also, the claim says "leading cause" (implying the top contributor) which is not supported by the weight share data, therefore, the claim is false. It would be more accurate to say that clothing and textile waste contributes significantly to landfills rather than being the leading cause.
https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/textiles-material-specific-data?

Answer 4

The claim that clothing is the leading cause of landfills in America is too exaggerated to be true. One of the original sources state that "The main source of textiles in municipal solid waste (MSW) is discarded clothing" and while this is true, this only refers to textiles and not other contributors to landfill such as agricultural waste, food, packaging, etc. The second article is also only looking at fast fashion and textiles, not including other possible factors.

According to research by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), food waste is the most landfilled material, causing nearly 60 percent of landfill methane emissions. Strategies listed by the EPA to decrease methane levels mostly center around waste prevention and food donation (http://rmi.org/your-trash-deserves-better-these-three-cases-show-whats-possible/#:~:text=Landfills%20are%20the%20third%20largest,capture%20and%20reduce%20methane%20leaks.).

For a secondary source, I looked at another article by Forbes, which also emphasizes how food waste is the largest part of municipal solid waste and continuously contributes to the worsening of climate change. While clothing is a big contributor to landfill, food waste is the ultimate largest and most impactful contributor (https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicasanders/2025/01/28/how-america-became-the-worlds-trash-leader/).

Potential biases for this claim are limited because this information is factual and based on data, not opinions.

Overall, it is important to understand this in order to make the right choices to protect our environment. Focusing on both clothing and food waste in landfills is better than focusing on just one aspect.