A report launched during Melbourne Fashion Week has called for an overhaul of the textiles industry to reduce its impact on the environment.
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Australians are the second largest consumers of textiles in the world behind the US, buying an estimated 27 kilograms of new fashion and textiles per person each year - more than double the global average.
Australians each buy an average of almost 15kg of new garments a year - 56 items per person.
It's estimated more than 90 per cent of those new clothes are thrown out within 12 months.
That's according to figures cited in the Monash University Sustainable Development Institute report, which reviewed the latest research on Australia's fashion and textiles industry.
Fashion consumption is increasing exponentially on a global scale, while the number of times clothes are owned and worn has declined, report author Aleasha McCallion told AAP.
"We're certainly leading the pack as far as the amount of textiles and clothing and fashion that we're able to consume per capita for such a small country," she said.
Australia manufactures 38 million items of clothing each year, but that's a mere three per cent of the amount of fashion imported into the country, according to the review.
Most of those garments end up in charity recycling bins or the trash, with 800,000 tonnes of textiles going to landfill each year.
Fast fashion in particular is contributing to water shortages and pollution, biodiversity loss, soil degradation and climate change, according to the Monash researchers.
The report calls for measures including a reduction in the resources used to make textiles, a ban on destroying finished products and incentives for the use of recycled materials.
Ms McCallion said Australians no longer understood what it took to make the textiles everywhere in everyday life, from clothes to towels and car interiors.
"We touch textiles all day long - arguably they're closer to us than our phones, which is saying a lot - and yet we often completely disregard their value in our day-to-day life," she said.
Clothes made locally tend to be more expensive and the million-dollar question is whether consumers will pay more for sustainable items, especially given current pressures on the cost of living.
"We know that more and more consumers want to make sustainable choices, but it's a very complex environment in which to make decisions," Ms McCallion said.
She wants to see better regulation of the production chain, so sustainability claims can be properly verified.
Melbourne Fashion Week runs until October 16.
Australian Associated Press
