Fast Fashion Is Hurting Our Planet
Are we to embrace the ‘buy-today, bin tomorrow’ thinking?
Over 10 years ago, I discovered fast fashion to my thrifty delight. Imagine purchasing a stylish house dress or a pair of fancy house slippers that cost just a fraction of what I normally spent for either of each? I thought they were a steal!
But this delight turned into discontent when, after wearing the dress twice, the hem of the dress came out frayed after a normal wash in the machine. Meanwhile, the strap of my house slippers lifted off the insole on my 11th day of use.
So, that was the end of my elation with fast fashion.
It was short-lived.
My common sense and usual practice prevailed. That of choosing good-quality clothing because they last, instead of buying low-cost clothing and footwear because they are poorly made.
The latter might give a fleeting satisfaction — a bargain! — but wearing cheap fashion could put you in an embarrassing situation. Think of clothing malfunction when you’re out in public — the spaghetti strap of your top may suddenly get detached or a button of a blouse or skirt may fall off.
As I was to realize years later, the slipshod make of fast fashion is not a key concern.
Buy Today, Bin Tomorrow
Fast forward to today on the issue of fast fashion and why we should all be concerned, let’s define first what fast fashion is:
“Fast fashion relates to clothing and accessories that move from the designer sketchpad to the store in the shortest amount of time possible — often in a matter of a month, vs. close to a year in traditional industry practice. Fast fashion merchandise is produced cheaply and priced cheaply. The clothes don’t last, but they’re not meant to — they’re often throwaways, aimed to cash in on a trend, worn a few times, and then discarded in favor of the next big thing or celebrity sighting.” - Investopedia
So, there you go. Fast fashion clothing (and I want to include here glitzy, fancy, and cheap footwear) is certifiably the buy-today, bin-tomorrow merchandise.
The Fast Fashionistas
The target customers of the fast fashion industry are those in their teens and early 20s who, as The New York Times (NYT) indicated, only wear their fast fashion once or twice.
A 16-year-old British high school student told NYT that she didn’t want to be seen by her 1,500 followers on Instagram wearing the same dress.
An 18-year-old freshman at Hofstra University also stated that she didn’t want to be seen on Instagram wearing the same clothes. She has about 300–400 pieces on her wardrobe, not including shoes and jewelry.
Another fast fashionista, a 20-year-old from the University of New South Wales, told NYT in the same article that she dressed to be seen on Instagram. She avoided wearing the same outfit twice. She pointed out that each year, she sent boxes of her clothes to her family in the Philippines. One of her cousins had a market stall and the fast fashionista assumed that her throw-away clothes were being sold as pre-loved items.
Can you see the connection of the booming fast fashion industry to social media?
Fast Fashion’s Exploitation of Garment Workers in Asia
No doubt, fast fashion is big business. In a Research and Markets Report, it was stated that while the global fast fashion market was expected to decline from $35.8 billion in 2019 to $31.4 billion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the market is then expected to recover and reach $38.21 billion in 2023.
In another NYT piece, it was claimed that fast fashion was a $2.4-trillion-a-year industry.
Whichever estimate is correct, there is no argument that it is one very big business. And one very big concern is how these businesses get to earn that much — which is reportedly by outsourcing the production of clothing to Asian countries.
A Global Labor Justice report, as stated here, referred to the exploitation and mistreatment, the poor working conditions, and the low living wages given to garment workers in Asia.
Note that 80% of these fast fashion garment workers are women.
The Damage Being Done by Fast Fashion to Our Planet
The labor exploitation of women in outsourced countries leveled at fast fashion businesses, while of grave concern, could not be as severe as this problem:
“Fast fashion is the second most polluting industry after oil” — Daily Express (UK), 28 June 2021, p21
Consider some of the data from the Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development (TRAID), a charity organization:
- Around half a million tons of plastic microfibers from clothes shed during the washing of synthetic textiles such as polyester, nylon, or acrylic end up in the ocean annually.
- 20% of industrial wastewater pollution worldwide originates from the textile industry; some chemicals are bio-accumulative and will remain there for a long time.
- The production of textiles uses around 93 billion cubic meters of water annually, with annual gas emissions of around 1.2 billion tons. This is more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.
- By 2030, carbon emissions of the clothing industry are expected to rise to nearly 2.8 billion tons; these are the equivalent of emissions produced by close to 230 million passenger vehicles driven for a year.
According to BBC –
- The US dumped or burned around 13 million tons of clothing.
- Globally, an estimated 92 million tons of textiles waste is created each year.
- The above is equivalent to a rubbish truck full of clothes ending up on landfill sites every second.
- By 2030, more than 134 million tons of textiles are expected to be discarded globally every year.
Meanwhile, based on a post on The Good Trade and also here, 11 million tons of clothes in the US are thrown in landfills annually.
Fast Fashion vs. Conscious Consumerism
The head of communications at TRAID, Leigh McAlea, could not have said it better as she outlined the dangers of the fast fashion industry to our planet, namely:
“… massive carbon emission, acceleration of global warming, desertification, rampant waste, water scarcity, microplastics pollution, exploitative labor, animal cruelty, catastrophic declines in insects, bees and other pollinators…” — sourced from the Daily Express, 29 June 2021, p20
The Above Facts Are Petrifying
But the solution to the current passion for fast fashion should involve the participation of everyone on the planet — most especially those who hang onto the buy-today, bin-tomorrow habit.
There are other ways in which we can help reduce the devastation of our planet including the following:
- Reuse clothes
- Recycle clothing
- Purchase pre-loved clothing (hello, charity shops)
- Patronize slow fashion, i.e. clothing that is made from natural materials which can be worn for many years
Let us share the information about the perils we face from fast fashion. Hopefully, we can reach as many fast fashionistas as we can and encourage them to be mindful of the call of our planet at risk.
Thank you very much for reading!
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