“AS CONSUMERS WE HAVE SO MUCH
POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD BY JUST BEING
CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT WE BUY”
By Emma Watson
When it comes to sustainable living there are many aspects of our daily lives that we must look at. What we choose to wear is just one of them. The clothes we choose to dress in plays a huge role in our efforts to live more sustainably and reduce our role in climate change.
‘Fast fashion’ means trendy outfits and many compliments to most, but our mindless consumption of clothes is a growing issue. In this post, I want to talk about how the fashion industry is not as amazing as it is described to be and how it really effects
Fashion in the Sphere of Sustainability
Fashion is often seen as a harmless expression with the wonderful colours and styles in which someone can dress up. But clothing production takes up a lot of resources that are more harmful than we think. This is even more pronounced when it comes to fast fashion and what that entails.
The fashion industry creates up to 2 to 8 percent of global GHG emissions and uses up to 2000 gallons of water to create just a few pairs of jeans.
Often, the clothes are made from fabrics that contain microplastics; these same textiles are known to make up 9% of the microplastics found yearly in the ocean. Fashion is creating an impact on global warming and creating horrible living conditions for people and animals. Tattered clothing is going into landfills and unbeknownst to people, clothing travels to different countries and into people’s backyards. As consumers’ appetite for new clothing becomes more insatiable the abandoned clothing becomes harder to dispose of. Communities are at a loss due to the environmental impacts from the dye/mineral contaminated water, water consumption, labour exploitation, and faulty regulation put in place to fix the problems created by this industry.
Fast fashion is a term we use to describe the mass production of clothes produced and sold at a reduced price. We often see a lot of new outfits modelled at large shows/conventions which are extremely expensive and sought after. This leads to clothes being made in similar styles and mass-produced for the consumption of people who may not be able to afford the original piece.
Fast fashion is an issue, and there are multiple ways to look at this through the lens of sustainability. My goal is to focus on 3 main factors that make fast fashion a topic of discussion when thinking about sustainability and the environment which are water, microplastics, and human labour.
Water
So, you might be wondering how water plays a role in sustainable fashion. But before we get to the part where water and fashion mix, we must understand the current crisis we have when it comes to water.
With the current conditions of climate change, many countries are having serious water shortage problems. UNICEF has stated over 4 billion people around the world experience water scarcity for a month every year and possibly more, and over 2 billion people live in places where water supply is insufficient. The water that is available may not be clean and therefore the populations are likely to contract diseases.
Now, to how the fashion industry affects water consumption. A lot of clothes are made from cotton and so many cotton fields are set up in parts of the world to feed the consumer appetite. The cotton industry employs 250 million people globally and makes up 7% of the labour force in developing countries. The methods used by this industry are unsustainable and environmentally hazardous and that hazard lies in pesticides that are used and end up in water used for other purposes such as agriculture. Water is constantly moving and contaminated water with pesticides is going to streams used by nearby wildlife and so it is now creating negative effects on the biodiversity beyond the location of the cotton farms.
Water pollution is a huge risk to communities around factories in which clothes are made. In the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, the rivers have become so dark and polluted by dye that there are no fish or wildlife left in what was once a thriving river. Bangladesh owns the second-largest clothing factory after china which creates $34 billion worth of clothing. Clothing production contributes to one-fifth of industrial water pollution, and due to the poor regulations on these industries, much of waste management is handled without care. Most wastes from these factories get thrown into nearby rivers creating a toxic environment. Waste materials include carcinogenic chemicals, dyes, salts, and heavy metals. All these materials create water conditions that are very harmful to the local wildlife and human population consumption.
One of the most common pieces of clothing made from cotton are denim jeans. The process these jeans go through is very long from the farm to the stores. The video underneath will share the process, and the video after, will help give an idea about the amount of water that is used in denim jean production.
Microplastics
Microplastics found in textiles are known as microfibres. These microfibres are hard to see and come loose quite easily from our clothes. Microplastics make up 34.8% of the global microplastic pollution of the ocean, which means what your clothes are shedding is going into the ocean being eaten by unsuspecting fishes and coming back to us in the form of food. The worst is that these microplastics are bio-accumulating, and so it is now possible to find bits of microplastics in the human body. Materials such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, and polyamide are just a few of the synthetic materials that shed microplastics. We can find these materials in 60% of the clothing that we buy globally.
In 2016 a study was done by Imogen E. Napper and Richard C. Thompson which showed the release of microplastic fibres from washing clothes with a washing machine. This study tested three types of materials which were polyester, polyester-cotton blend and acrylic fabrics. From this study, we know that the materials do release fibres and on average 700,000 fibres are released from a wash load of 6kg every wash. The amount released per wash varied from each material acrylic releasing the most and polyester-cotton blend releasing the least, but still a significant amount. The graph below illustrates the amount of microplastic fibres released when the materials are washed, recorded in this study.
Human Labour
Due to high consumer demand for the latest styles of clothing, the fashion industry often exploits its workers (especially in third world countries or of immigrants). Many companies look for ways to pay their employees less. They leverage the workers’ need to send income to support their families (most often women and underage kids) to pay them extremely little.
Proper safety regulations are not put into place so workers have to suffer working conditions that can put their lives at risk. The Dhaka factory collapsing in 2013, which killed over 1000 people, was a result of these poor choices. It opened some peoples eyes to the immediate need of holding these factories accountable and some new regulations were put into place. Recently in 2020 in Bangladesh, a gas explosion occurred killing a 20-year-old woman raising questions about if the new regulations were enough. This incident has made retail stores take action to address what has happened and to move forward by working with unions and the government to create better regulations to improve safety.
What can we do?
It’s never too late to try and make a change. As a consumer, there are a few things that we can do. The First would be to buy less clothing, only the pieces you would actually wear. If you are not going to wear your old clothes, donate them so that others can use them. Much of our donations end up in warehouses which get shipped to landfills or abroad and only a ¼ of our donations are used by thrift stores. It is important to be conscious of what you purchase and think about where your clothes are going when you are done with them.
We can also do more research on the brands that we use, are they using sustainable farming methods and are their workforces being paid a fair wage? We should make sure to look out for the materials they use as well, due to the fact of synthetic fibres coming out of clothes end up in our water.
References:
Akbary, S. (2020, November 21). The Negative Effects of Fast Fashion. BORGEN. Retrieved from https://www.borgenmagazine.com/the-negative-effects-of-fast-fashion/
Jay, P. (2018, May 29). Here’s where your donated clothing really ends up | CBC News. CBCnews. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/donated-clothing-where-it-ends-up-1.4662023
Le, N. (2020, July 20). The impact of fast fashion on the environment — PSCI. Princeton University. Retrieved from https://psci.princeton.edu/tips/2020/7/20/the-impact-of-fast-fashion-on-the-environment
Napper, I. E., & Thompson, R. C. (2016). Release of synthetic microplastic plastic fibres from domestic washing machines: Effects of fabric type and washing conditions. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 112(1–2), 39–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2016.09.025
Paton, E. (2020, March 1). After factory disaster, Bangladesh made big safety strides. are the bad days coming back? The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/world/asia/rana-plaza-bangladesh-garment-industry.html
Putting the brakes on fast fashion. UNEP. (2018, November 12). Retrieved from https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/putting-brakes-fast-fashion
Regan, H. (2020, September 29). Asian rivers are turning black. and our colorful closets are to blame . CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/style/article/dyeing-pollution-fashion-intl-hnk-dst-sept/index.html
Resnick, B. (2018, September 19). More than ever, our clothes are made of plastic. just washing them can pollute the oceans. Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/19/17800654/clothes-plastic-pollution-polyester-washing-machine
UN Alliance aims to put fashion on path to Sustainability. UNECE. (2018, July 12). Retrieved from https://unece.org/forestry/press/un-alliance-aims-put-fashion-path-sustainability
Water scarcity. UNICEF. (n.d.). Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.unicef.org/wash/water-scarcity
World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). Cotton. WWF. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/cotton
