A Research Essay On Fast Fashion.
It takes 3000 liters of water to produce one cotton t-shirt. Each year more clothes are produced than last and each year more clothing ends up in landfills. Most clothing is made by workers who are severely underpaid and work in poor conditions, this is what fast fashion does.
Is this knowledge enough for people to stop buying fast fashion?
The fast fashion industry is not sustainable, it exploits workers, and it harms the environment.
According to anthropologist Yoon, “The term “fast fashion” refers to low-price clothes that move from the catwalk to a mass market by replicating current luxury fashion trends” (Yoon). To reject fast fashion means accepting sustainable practices.
Avoiding retail shopping has a huge impact on the environment, as the World Bank organization states, “Less than 1% of used clothing is recycled into new garments” (“How Much Do Our Wardrobes Cost to the Environment?”). An alternative to retail shopping is thrifting. Purchasing second hand clothing gives another chance to a garment that could have potentially ended up in the landfill.
Most successful companies in America relocate their means of manufacturing offshore without having great conditions and basic wages. Shown in the US in the 1980s, “As wage and benefits costs soared in high wage economies...more and more actual assembly was subsequently relocated offshore, with the inevitable questions raised about global procurement versus worker rights” (Taplin, 74). These textile factories are known to be called sweatshops. Sweatshops are notoriously known to have child labor. In addition to their low pay and illegal child labor, there has occured many textile factory fires in history such as the famous Bangladesh and New York factory fires. The causes of these factory fires are poor working conditions, this source explains what young girls in India face, “In South India, for example, 250,000 girls work under the Sumangali scheme, a practice which involves sending young girls from poor families to work in a textile factory for three or five years in exchange for a basic wage and an lump sum payment at the end to pay for their dowry (“Working Conditions in the Fashion Industry”). Without the textile industry, such disturbing conditions for these young women would not be occurring.
The consumers are not to be scapegoated for the detrimental effects caused by the textile industry. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation found that, “the average number of times a piece of clothing is worn decreased by 36% between 2000 and 2015. In the same period, clothing production doubled. These gains came at the expense of quality and longevity of the garments” (Ro). Why do people consume so much clothing? Keeping up with trends is a luxury that one must not deny the consumer. After all, the US is a capitalist society that exploits women’s beauty. There are two choices; to adopt ethical buying choices or not. Adopting ethical choices such as second shopping, buying quality clothing that is sustainable, and other choices reject fast fashion completely.
The Fashion Industry is the 3rd largest polluter in the world. The effects are shown in the oceans, earth’s atmosphere, soil, food, and more. Humans are discarding clothing at a rate faster than the earth can handle. Almost 60% of clothing ends up in landfill before the incineration process, a process that releases harmful chemicals (Le). Dyeing is an important aspect of making unique clothes, however, “textile dyeing requires toxic chemicals that subsequently end up in our oceans...Approximately 20% of the wastewater worldwide” (Le). One can see quickly how harmful clothes are for the environment. Yoon, one of the authors for a fast fashion avoidance belief journal, researches how it affects, “Climate change, energy efficiency, water stewardship”. In summary, the stop of fast fashion is a step against climate change.
The impacts of fast fashion on the environment are so vast and worldwide. However, the impact one can have on the environment and others by practicing sustainability is also vast. Viscose, a common material in today’s clothing, is so toxic to the environment that it is banned to be produced in the US because it is too toxic for EPA’s standards (Wicker). With growing landfills of clothing with nowhere to go, paying attention to the material of the clothes one buys can make a huge difference in reducing clothing in landfills. There are only 2 places clothes can go once discarded: the incinerator, which is just a way to clean trash before it goes to the only place it can go, the landfill. As of 2019, the current report shows that 62 million metric tons of apparel were consumed globally (World Bank Group, 2019, as cited in Le, 2020).
It is not difficult to protect the earth by being conscious of what one consumes, to purchase second hand clothing, to care about human rights, and to stop buying fast fashion. In a discussion, anthropologist Sandra Niessen discusses what consumers can do about decolonizing fast fashion: “Demanding transparency from retail buyers, demanding living wages for workers in the south, and adopting ethical buying choices” (Niessen). These conditions need to be met by every fashion company for ethical and humanitarian purposes. Reducing ones carbon footprint is imperative in protecting the earth's atmosphere, water, soil quality, and animals. Doing research on the clothes one buys is just the start of what one can do to start being a conscious consumer. The World Bank suggests that real change can really begin once these fast fashion companies include, “environmental and social factors...a part of the guiding principles of their corporate strategies” (“How Much Do Our Wardrobes Cost to the Environment?). Rejecting fast fashion is a matter of morality, justice, and mindfulness.