We’ve amassed many Christmas traditions over the years, but the one that probably stands out for many of us is the quest to find the perfect festive jumper. Cool, office appropriate and wittily ironic is the dream crimbo combo, of course, but is incredible hard to do.
Matched with the fact that generally speaking, Christmas jumpers are cheap and easy to get hold of it’s not all that surprising to hear that so many of us only wear this particular brand of novelty attire once before throwing them away. It’s the frivolous one-time-wear behaviour that probably stressed you out about Carrie Bradshaw too.
One in four of the Christmas jumpers purchased last year was either binned or unlikely to be worn again. And even though the existence of Christmas jumpers pretty dramatically limits the amount of potential wear-time down to just a month (six weeks if you’re super committed, though), wearing them once and ditching them every year not only has an accumulatively negative impact on your bank balance, it’s really rubbish for the environment too.
WATCH: How To Knit Yourself A Christmas Jumper
Research by the environmental charity Hubbub found that about £220 million will be spent on jumpers in the run up to Christmas this year while at the same time a third of people below the age of 35 will buy a new one each year.
'Christmas jumpers are one of many examples of the global craving for "fast fashion"', Hubbub's Sarah Divall tells The Debrief. 'In the last 15 years the amount of clothing bought globally has doubled and only 1% of clothing fabric is currently recycled into new clothes. The average time a garment is worn has decreased by 36% over the past 15 years. It costs the UK £82 million a year to throw away clothing and textiles into landfill sites. '
These aren't pleasant figures to face. The conversation around 'ethical' fashion and the responsibility on brands and suppliers to do better has been circulating for a while, but we can often forget that something as seemingly small as religiously purchasing a festive jumper each year will play a small part in the bigger picture too.
Sarah explains: 'The carbon footprint of all textiles is bigger than those of all international flights and maritime shipping combined. It has been estimated that about half a million tonnes of plastic microfibres shed during the washing of plastic-based textiles such as polyester, nylon or acrylic end up in the ocean annually.'
Don't get us wrong, we get it. That weird sub-conscious fear of being seen in the same clothes twice applies to novelty items too. We're all subject to the pressures of Instagram and wanting to be seen as owning lots of new, cool, double-tap worthy things. But knowing that 20% of global water pollution is caused by textile processing (making it the second biggest culprit on the planet), maybe it's time for all of us to re-evaluate our fast fashion habits and have a think about just how necessary it is to buy a new jumper every year. Because truth be told, that light up one you bought back in 2013 is probably just fine. Especially if we're only bothering to put them on for the one day so not to feel left out at the office Christmas Jumper day pub drinks.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.