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The Kids' Clothing Cast-offs Mountain

The I newspaper recently reported research from Epson (the printer-people showing interesting diversity) finding that children have about 90 items of new clothes each year. A large proportion of them (about 59%) never get used and are thrown away. Most of this 'surplus' is driven by seasonal events such as Christmas (71%), Halloween (41%), School dress-up days (27%) and World Book Day (16%) with Birthdays, Cultural events and Sports also named.

The total thrown away is around 216 million pieces of children’s clothing in landfill each year – 244 times the height of Mount Everest if stacked in one giant clothes pile: While two thirds of parents (66%) actively consider more sustainable clothes for themselves these days, nearly half (48%) admit to getting rid of their children’s clothes in the quickest and easiest way possible.

Obviously children don't usually buy clothes, another point made in the research being that they are bought around nine items of clothing by friends and family during the Christmas period – three (33%) of which won’t ever be worn.

Beyond 'gifting', although we're in the business of hiring rather than selling (and most of that to adults), we can make some observations which may be pertinent: Costume hire for kids can be a minefield, and it's often not the child that's the problem: Parents don't always seem to know their child as much as they think.

On an initial enquiry about child costume hire, you usually get vague information like 'he/she is big for their age' – big as in tall or big as in wide? You can also get 'he/she can wear a small adult size' – some small adults can wear child sizes, so not necessarily helpful, especially if adult outfits cost more to hire.

Often, parents decide to hire a costume without the child actually being present, and not for 'surprise' reasons – “I know what size they are and what they'll wear” Often this can end in tears (sometimes literarily) and the parent returns sheepishly with said child in tow. With others, the costume seems strangely unworn and there's a tale of some event which prevented the outfit being used (some may even try for some refund).

As a sidebar, we've had adults get choosing for an absentee partner seriously wrong; Tasked with selecting a Film Character Couple, a husband went for Richard Gere for himself and a Pretty Woman outfit (early street-girl look) for his wife, Perhaps he was beguiled by the thigh-length boots, but his wife, not so much so, and there was a frosty atmosphere when they both returned to make an alternative choice.

Returning to Children's clothes, many of the unused outfits in question will probably have been purchased on the Internet. Here, aside from the 'sight unseen' element, sizing (especially on international goods) can be erratic. In most cases such goods can, in theory, be returned, but with so many parents living such busy lives, it may just be too much trouble to do, hence the new, tagged, closet hogging surplus.

Being charitable, it is possible that some of this surplus can be repurposed, donated or resold on EBay and the like, but the facts on 'fast fashion' generally do not support this theory.