Packaging is not the only plastic problem the global fashion retailers face

livemint.com:

Until the rise of online retail, you might have been forgiven for thinking that all apparel was shipped in burlap sacks. Today, garment spending can be made sustainable by using re-usable wooden hangers, paper shopping bags and recycled fibres. The only glimpse of plastic in many fashion stores is the electronic equipment at the checkout.

Below that surface, the fashion industry is built on a mountain of artificial textiles. Global production of cotton and wool has barely increased since the early 1990s. Manufactured and synthetic fibres like viscose, nylon and polyester, however, have roughly tripled.

That contradiction lies behind the sales-season fight between two of the rag trade’s biggest players. Inditex—the Spanish company that owns Zara—is at a stalemate in a battle over plastics with one of its biggest distributors, online fashion giant Zalando. Inditex is trying to cut its emissions in half by 2030 and wants to eliminate single-use plastics this year, but Zalando is balking at demands to stop distributing its clothing in polythene bags.

These synthetic sacks are ubiquitous in the fashion trade, as they’re used to prevent item damage on the way from a factory to the consumer. Brick-and-mortar retailers remove them before products are laid out in stores, so until recently you’d have been forgiven for not knowing of their existence. The rise of online retailers searching for quicker, cheaper ways of doing business forced them into customers’ consciousness.