A recent study conducted by Oxfam revealed that buying a t-shirt and a pair of pre-owned jeans could help us save around 20.000 water bottles. Experts at the NGO suggest that in order to produce a single t-shirt, fashion brands need to use the equivalent of 5.400 water bottles of 500 ml each, while for jeans, the number increases to 16.000 bottles. Euronews.green writes that 5.400 bottles would be enough to meet the drinking needs of 1.600 people in a day.

Oxfam’s retail director Lorna Fallon said that "given the world is running short of freshwater due to climate change, the water-intensive cost of clothes production could be vitally reduced if we mixed up our wardrobes with second-hand purchases."

The reason why so much water is being consumed by fashion brands is that this resource is being used to grow the natural fibers, such as cotton, to dye the fabrics, as well as to wash the end products.

To manufacture the total clothing sales in the UK within a year, the industry consumes as much water as the population would use in two years, around 8 million cubic meters. If we're looking at the fashion sector's water consumption within a year globally, we will discover that the 93 billion cubic meters of freshwater would be enough to fill 37 million Olympic pools.

What's worse is that, according to experts at the NGO Planet Tracker, 90% of the fashion brands never disclose the water-risks associated with their businesses.

Fallon explained that "by recirculating our clothes - buying, wearing and donating second-hand - we can help to reduce the demand for new clothes. And this could in turn help to reduce the damage to our planet."