I recently asked my Instagram followers some questions regarding fast fashion and sustainability in the fashion industry. Most said they’ve heard of fast fashion, a little over half felt that they understood it, but ALL (yes, 100%) said they wanted to learn more about fast fashion and it’s environmental impact. So, I’m bringing it here, so all of you can learn more about it, be more informed consumers, and be a little kinder to our Mother Earth.
Back in the day, brands would plan clothes months in advance for each season—spring, summer, fall, and winter. Consumers would go buy the clothes they needed for that specific season, and come back the next season when new clothes were out. “Fast fashion” describes apparel that moves quickly from catwalk to stores to meet new trends. But now, due to increased consumerism, more affordable pricing in the industry, and the convenience of online shopping, people are purchasing clothing in higher quantities and more often. This forces retailers to produce more to stay “on-trend”. Many of what retailers produce doesn’t get purchased, and is burnt or thrown out. The resources used to create the clothing is wasted and causes serious damage to the environment.
According to the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, the $2.4 trillion industry accounts for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions. Part of the problem is due to the fact that production of an article of clothing goes through middleman, after middleman, after middleman.
For example, let’s hypothetically take a basic cotton t-shirt. The cotton itself is grown in, let’s say, Brazil. Once it’s harvested, it goes to China to be woven into fabric and dyed. After that, the fabric goes to Honduras to be cut and assembled and eventually makes it’s way on the market where you can purchase it through a retailer and have it shipped straight to your doorstep. Along the way, all these materials are leaving a trail of wastewater, industrial chemicals, air pollution, and carbon.
Cotton itself is a difficult crop to grow. It requires a lot of water and a lot of pesticides. Cotton alone uses more than 15% of all the insecticides used for any crop anywhere in the world. In order to be processed into fibers, detergents and scouring agents are used to take away the natural waxes that come with the cotton ball. It goes through a ginner and gets spun, and then coated with chemicals because the fibers are not strong. They need sizing (a sort of starch) that later gets washed off, but is bad for the rivers that receive them. Cotton also doesn’t accept dye, so more chemicals are needed for the dye to come together. That’s quite a lot of environmental damage just for the cotton alone.
So, what sort of regulations are in place to prevent this? Hardly any. The EPA has it’s rules and regulations, but with the recent wave of globalization, manufacturing has left US shores; 80% of textile factories operate outside of the US.
However, in France, a woman named Brune Poirson from the Ministry of Ecological and Inclusive Transition, enacted a policy banning fashion companies from destroying their own merchandise. It seems silly, but this is very common. High fashion brands destroy unsold apparel at the end of a season to prevent them from being sold sold second-hand or discounted, as that affects brand equity. Fast fashion brands produce so much merchandise that they just can’t get rid of, and it’s too much to try to sell or donate. France’s policy has caused brands to be more responsible with what they’re producing and better at tracking supply and demand.
This is a very basic overview of fast fashion and it’s environmental impacts and barely scratches the surface. Essentially, what consumers fail to realize is that their clothing is way more than just clothing. Each piece has it’s own carbon and the price of the item extends far beyond and much deeper than the price tag. So next time you go out shopping, really think about what you’re purchasing and if it’s really worth it.
For further reading:
“The Troubling Ethics of Fashion in the Age of Climate Change,” Washington Post Magazine (article)
“What Is Fast Fashion, Anyway?” The Good Trade (article)
“The True Cost of Fast Fashion,” Economist (video)
“Why It Matters: Wearing Out the World,” Council on Foreign Relations (podcast)*
“The Wizard and The Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World,” by Charles C. Mann (book)
*this podcast is the main source I used to gather information for this piece
**this book talks more about climate change and the future as a whole, but focuses a lot on the environmental impact of our actions (such as how we interact with the fashion industry, as discussed here