A Queensland-made documentary is shining a light on the impact of fast fashion on Pacific island nations.
To be launched this week, the new documentary made by researchers from the QUT School of Design, found Australia’s fast fashion consumption was increasingly causing a mountainous waste nightmare for countries like the Solomon Islands.
The result of an Australian-first research project, led by Associate Professor Tiziana Ferrero-Regis, Good Neighbours takes viewers on a journey through the reality of Aussie clothing donated and exported to other countries.
“While exposing the environmental toll of fast fashion, it also uncovers a story about the lives of local women who rely on secondhand trade for survival and betterment,” Dr Ferrero-Regis said.
She said the powerful, 11-minute exposé, uncovered the complex and often unseen trade of Australia’s secondhand clothing exports to the Pacific Islands – specifically to the capital city of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, which received tonnes of used clothes from Australia every month.
“Australians are avid consumers of fast fashion but there is a high cost to the environment and to our neighbours,” Dr Ferrero-Regis said.
“We buy 55 items of clothing each year on average, which equates to 27kg, and dispose of 23kg a year per capita. It is unsustainable.”
She said Good Neighbours directed the viewers’ gaze to neighbouring countries that received up to 300 bales of used clothing a month, with each bale weighing between 50 and 500 kgs.
