How many socks are wasted each year

Datang, China produces 27billion pairs of socks per year which is 70% of the global production of socks. while we couldn't pinpoint where the other 30% is coming from exactly, India is 2nd, then Vietnam, Turkey and a few others not worth mentioning.

Meaning a total of around 39 billion pairs of socks are produced annually or 78 Billion individual socks...

The average person buys 7-15 pairs per year, we used a conservative 7 pairs per year for our calcs.

That means around 5.5B people are buying 7 pairs per year (remember these are averages).

Each person with socks on average loses & throws out 10-15 individual socks per year based on our research (see links below), we used a conservative 12 for our calculations.

This means that 66.852 billion individual socks are lost or thrown out each year. 

This works out at 33B 'Pairs' which is 9 Billion short of what's being produced each year, so the math logically makes sense aswell...

If each sock is 33cm long, a line of socks would lap the earth 9,076 times

The Sydeny opera house's main area is 26,400 cubic meters

Meaning that they socks would fill the Sydeny opera house *main hall* 16,213 times 

 Research:

Datang producing 27B:

https://verifyfull.com/the-most-famous-socks-town-in-china-datang/
https://asianews.network/datangs-smart-factories-help-sew-up-title-of-worlds-sock-capital/
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202206/02/WS629816d9a310fd2b29e606f1.html
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/09/sock-city-decline-china-economy
https://web.archive.org/web/20090311020603/http://english.cri.cn/4026/2008/05/25/1721@361743.htm

How many socks go missing:

https://www.blacksocks.com/en/sockloss#socklossindex
https://dowihosiery.com/socks-statistics-things-you-might-not-know-about-socks/#:~:text=73%25%20of%20men%20wear%20socks,with%2041%25%20percent%20of%20women.&text=How%20many%20people%20wear%20socks,adults%20wear%20socks%20at%20home.
https://start.askwonder.com/insights/socks-market-size-edsy2s25k
https://oec.world/en/profile/hs/knit-socks-and-hosiery  

https://www.gids.nl/sydney/opera.html

Average person buys 7-15 pairs a year.

Euromonitor
Statista
The NPD Group
Deloitte Consumer Industry Insights