The 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 to be taken by consumers, local governments and businesses at a time when a large percentage of used clothes in households is often disposed of as waste.

The ministry hopes to promote an effective use of secondhand clothes and encourage production and consumption of appropriate amounts of apparel 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 during the year, while approximately 480,000 tons were disposed of as waste. Included in that amount of clothing, about 510,000 tons were incinerated or dumped into landfills.

In contrast, the reuse of secondhand clothing and the recycling of fibers from discarded garments have been slow, partly because the reuse market has not fully developed and recycling is difficult because of the wide variety of fibers used in clothing.

Fashion’s environmental burden weighs even heavier due to the massive amounts of water and energy required for production. In addition, the time between purchase and disposal is is becoming shorter due to the lower quality of “fast fashion” and other cheap apparel.

The government has set a target of reducing the amount of clothing discarded from households by 25% by fiscal 2030 from the level in fiscal 2020.

As the rate of reduction stands below 2% 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% 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.