As Egypt's economy dips, sustainable fashion soars

To the sweeping majority of roughly 4.7 million people living in Monofeya, one of Egypt’s poorest provinces, “sustainable fashion” is a term that likely means very little. But it’s here, where 26% of the population lives below the poverty line, that a single business upcycled around 940 tons (850 metric tons) of fabric in five years.

“We, as entrepreneurs, were interested in creative manufacturing and environmental solutions after noticing the amount of textile waste,” says Amgad Moustafa, co-founder of Green Fashion, the brand that has brought together some 200 women to breathe new life into piles of fabrics and textiles that would otherwise get incinerated or dumped in landfills. The business, which began in 2018, uses surplus fabrics and textile waste from 50 textile factories for its raw materials.

Each year, Egypt’s sprawling garment industry — which accounts for 4% of the country’s GDP — produces around 234,000 tons (212,000 metric tons) of textile waste, according to a UN study.

And the environmental impact of the global fashion industry is massive.

It takes 10,000 liters (2,600 gallons) of water to grow the cotton for a single pair of jeans, enough to hydrate one person for 10 years, according to the UN. And according to recent reports by McKinsey, the industry produces 3–10% of total greenhouse gasses, its solvents and dyes make up a quarter of industrial water pollution, and in recent years it has accounted for 20–35% of microplastic flows into the ocean. The UN has called fast fashion “an environmental emergency.”