A series of proposals put forward by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) to curb the impact of throwaway fashion have been dismissed by the Government.
The report, which highlighted the social and environmental implications of the clothing industry, found that the UK sends 300,000 tonnes of textile waste to landfill or incinerators every year, while less than one per cent of material is recycled into new clothing.
Christina Dean, founder of environmental charity Redress and sustainable clothing label The R Collective told Premier: "Previously, I was so excited about the report and the environmental audit committee's recommendations, I'm always so proud of the government and the kind of leadership that we have here.
"So it was a bit of a shock, I definitely wasn't expecting that."
The EAC study shows that Britain buys more clothes per person than any other European country. Its recommendations to tackle the problem included a ban on burning unsold stock and the introduction of a one pence charge per garment on producers for better recycling of clothes.
Ms Dean thinks consumers have an equal responsibility to reduce clothing waste, she said: "We've got an ethical blind spot in how we buy clothes. The problem is that fashion is so powerful that people don't go out to rationally buy clothes, they go out and they buy clothes because they think it's going to change how they feel.
"However, the industry itself is definitely playing a huge role in this because they're allowing us to buy very cheap clothes that don't really factor in the real price that those clothes should cost."
Christina says British consumers are too removed from the issue: "The negative impacts happen far away from home and quite honestly a lot of people don't even understand the negative impacts - be that environmental, social working conditions etc."
Downing Street says it has plans in the pipeline to tackle the issue of fast fashion and has already begun working with the industry to make changes.
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