Fashion consumers choose fast fashion because it’s easy and it’s cheap. What they don’t know is that fast fashion’s true cost isn’t displayed on the price tag of that cute t-shirt or trendy pair of jeans. The real cost is in the world’s increasingly polluted waterways, our poisoned ecosystems and food chains, the impoverished garment laborers working in unsafe conditions for unlivable wages, and the millions of tons of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere--the list just goes on and on.
How did we get to this point?
This is made possible with incredibly rapid production and turnaround time, often taking less than two weeks from product conception to hitting storefronts and websites. In order to pump out massive amounts of cheap garments in record time, fast fashion companies offshore their production to third world countries where labor and environmental regulations are often nonexistent (97% of fast fashion in the U.S. is produced overseas.) This leads to frequent reports of human rights abuses, forced labor, child labor, and unlivable wages. The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh was the first time the world’s attention was drawn to the perils of fast fashion: over 1,100 garment workers were killed while churning out cheap fashion in unsafe conditions.
What happens to all of these clothes on our end?
Most fast fashion is worn a few times and kept an average of 35 days and is then thrown away. Many people donate their unwanted clothes to thrift stores or the Salvation Army, however, the whole idea of the world's lack of clothing is untrue: we have an enormous surplus of clothing and textiles. 73% of the material input for fast fashion textiles ends up incinerated or landfilled, oftentimes in third world countries that lack the resources for proper waste management.
Image Caption: One garbage truck (2,625 kilograms) of clothes is burned every second. The result - rampant pollution and cancer-causing chemicals being released into our environment.
Fast fashion has grown exponentially over the past 40 years and is projected to continue growing. Along with this projected growth is a drastic increase in fast fashion's resource consumption, environmental pollution, and ecosystem poisoning. In 2015, 98 million tonnes of oil, fertilizers, and chemicals were used in the textile industry, with a staggering 300 million tonnes projected by 2050. This oil and other petrochemicals are primarily used in creating synthetic fibers like polyester; up to 60% of our clothes are made of these synthetic materials, which are not biodegradable and can last for up to 200 years. The industry’s carbon footprint is projected to hit 26% of the global total by 2050; even worse is that an additional 22 million tonnes of microplastics will be dumped in our oceans between 2015 and 2050--that is if we allow fast fashion to continue to grow at its current rate.
How can we fight such a large and entrenched industry like fast fashion?
The entire industry is fueled by one major variable: consumer demand. It’s our choice to go shopping several times per month or even per week, and fast fashion feeds on our consumer impulsivity.
The first step is to spread the word and inform consumers about the harmful industry their fashion craving supports. After that, we as consumers need to start thinking more sustainably about our fashion and start keeping and caring for our clothing for longer periods of time. According to Forbes, Americans throw away about 70 pounds of clothing, per person, annually. When you put that number in context with all of our fashion consumers, the amount of clothing waste--and all the negative consequences of pollution and environmental damage--is mind-boggling.
Next time when you’re thinking of adding anything to your closet, you can think of buying second hand luxury items. It’ll not only save you money, but it’ll be a step towards a sustainable future. If you’re going for a brand new one, you’ve always an option to sell designer bags, clothes, and accessories. This way, it does not only create a cycle of sustainability, you have a great tool of investment too.
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