Did you know that the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world? It sounds pretty harmless, especially since a lot of clothing items are made from natural materials like cotton. Despite a multitude of brands offering recycling services, and creating lines that are partially or fully recyclable, there is still a lot of harm that comes from fast fashion. First of all, the term “fast fashion” is used to describe how quickly runway designs move from the catwalk to fashion retailers. Brands like Zara and Forever21 are most well-known for this, as they’re constantly adding new designs to their websites. It shouldn’t come as a shock, then, that the fashion industry is the second largest polluting industry, right behind the oil industry. Here are some facts that make this industry as “dirty” as it is.
- Cotton is a very thirsty plant: conscious consumers have recently been gravitating towards all natural fibers such as cotton, but they’re not taking into full account just how sane these options really are. Cotton makes up 40% of our clothing material, and consumes up to 8,000 liters of water per kilogram. A more sustainable alternative to regular cotton is organic cotton, which only makes up only 1% of the total cotton grown in the world.
- Dyes are full of chemicals: the dyes used to create the perfect shade of millennial pink or cerulean blue are causing a lot more harm than you would think. In Indonesia, clothing manufacturers are dumping chemicals directly into nearby rivers, killing all aquatic life and threatening the health of those communities’ inhabitants.
- We treat our clothing like trash: you’d be surprised by the amount of people who literally throw their clothes away. That’s right – they throw it right into the trash with the rest of their garbage. So few people are educated on the alternatives to simply throwing clothing away, that fast fashion is starting to pile up in our dumps. Not only is all this clothing wasting space, but a lot of it is made up of non-biodegradable materials and chemicals that are polluting our Earth. Rather than tossing pieces you no longer where, think of some organizations that you could donate them to, organize a clothing swap with friends, or sell them through secondhand stores such as Poshmark or Worcester’s local Grime Clothing.
- We’re shopping more than we ever have before: because of the whole fast fashion movement, more clothing is being manufactured than ever before. Twenty items of clothing are manufactured per person each year. Not only are we consuming more, but we’re also keeping clothing for less time than we have in the past. To limit the amount of waste you produce, try out a minimalist approach to styling your wardrobe: opt for staple pieces that you know will stay in style, and more versatile pieces.
- More greenhouse gases are being produced: because a lot of textile manufacturers are coal-powered, there are more and more GHGs being produced and emitted into the air. As you probably already know, GHGs are exactly what contribute to climate change.