Fashioning a way out of the textile waste wilderness

Directed by Joanna Bowers, the film charts the course of three sustainable textile enterprises - and the dedication of the people driving them. Also at the heart of the matter is the contemporary obsession with "fast fashion" - or cheaply produced and priced, readily disposable items that have a limited use and life span - and the collateral damage thus caused.

"Coming in to this film, none of us had any idea of the cost behind this fast fashion that we were all consuming," Bowers said, whose earlier work, a documentary called The Helper (2017), looks at the personal sacrifices many among Hong Kong's foreign domestic workers make in order to make a living.

The World Wide Fund for Nature has reported that the average consumer purchased 60 percent more clothes in 2014 compared with 2000 but kept these items for half as long. In Hong Kong, the Environmental Protection Department has estimated that an average of 392 metric tons of textile waste a day is thrown into landfills, accounting for 3.4 percent of the total municipal solid waste.

Bowers said she hopes her film will give audiences pause to think about their relationship with the clothes they wear, and its impact on the world around them.

"We've all had to grow up and actually realize literally the true costs of what we're buying and what we're wearing," Bowers said. "We are the first generation to look at clothes as disposable, but by that same token, we were also the first generation to look at coffee cups as disposable - and look at how that is changing. Now that people are becoming conscientious, it's very, very easy to change your behavior, and just go back to a more-sustainable choice."