Three Creative Ways to Fix Fashion’s Waste Problem

In this presentation, Kalra blends personal accounts of his life in the fashion industry with data about consumer habits, the afterlives of our clothes, and the natural resources used to create new garments. The fashion industry’s environmental footprint is second only to oil and gas, and Kalra excels at framing the industry’s waste statistics through analogies and images that put these numbers into sharp perspective for a lay audience. On the basis of this data, he then proposes a series of solutions (composable fabrics, recyclable clothing, dying clothes with spices instead of chemicals) that each promise to bring measurable reductions in waste. As a model for student presentations, Kalra’s talk is particularly notable the rhetorical strategies he uses to make giant, global statistics resonate clearly and vividly on a personal scale.

Keywords:  Data Storytelling    Waste    Persuading with Data  

MLA Citation: Kalra, Amit. ‘Three Creative Ways to Fix Fashion’s Waste Problem.’ TED Talk, 2023. https://www.ted.com/talks/amit_kalra_3_creative_ways_to_fix_fashion_s_waste_problem?subtitle=en&trigger=5s