Fast Fashion
I’ll be the first to admit it: I love shopping. It is an addiction. There’s something about buying a new candle, journal, or knick-knack that makes me so happy. But my ultimate drug of choice is clothes. I look for new outfits when I’m sad, bored, happy. Of course, if I am being honest, this shopping addiction is not new.
However, elementary school me was never really concerned with where I was getting my clothes. I never looked at the fabrics used in the clothing or researched the history of the brand. It was never anything that crossed my mind. It was not until I got to college and needed to use my own money to buy clothes, that I actually started to pay attention to the fashion industry. Once I saw the fashion industry for what it truly is, I found myself a completely different shopper than I had been before. This is a breakdown of what I have since discovered about the industry.
THE INDUSTRY
So, what does the fashion industry consist of? It is a 2 trillion-dollar industry that has recently taken over by what is known as fast fashion. Fast fashion is best understood as what is found in malls. It’s that poor quality clothing that goes in and out of style and is sold to consumers at cheap rates. It sounds great, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Although we as consumers may be getting cheap, in-style clothing, fast fashion is not all good. Actually, I would be so bold as to say that fast fashion is almost completely a negative industry to support. Here is why: fast fashion uses fabrics and techniques that are bad for the environment. On top of that, the industry does not care for its employees.
THE ENVIRONMENT
I think, for Americans, it is easy to feel set off from the side effects of the fashion industry because these factories mainly exist abroad (cheap labor). However, “pollution does not stop at national borders and climate change cannot be isolated to particular countries or continents” (Thiele 41). The pollution that takes place abroad to make our clothes still impacts the environment in the United States, or wherever it is in the world you may live. The fashion industry is both a major contributor to pollution in the world and creates tons of waste in landfills.
FABRICS
Consider the fabric of the clothing you wear. “Approximately 90% of clothing sold in the United States is made with cotton or polyester” (Bick 2). But, what does that mean for the environment? Well, cotton uses a lot of water just to grow the plant. It takes around 5,000 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to make one shirt (World Wildlife). To put this into perspective, you use less than 5 gallons each time you flush a toilet. This is extremely wasteful because those 5,000 gallons of water could be much better used on something else. But, the water usage in the process of making clothes does not end there. Water is also used in dyeing clothing. In this process, untreated wastewater from dyes is released into local water sources releasing micro-fibers and chemicals into ecosystems (Bick 2). This is bad for the health of animals that depend on that water source and for nearby residents, who also rely on that water for various things. It is actually estimated that fast fashion specifically is responsible for around 20% of water pollution annually (Thomas). Other than cotton, polyester is a common material used in clothing. Polyester is also bad for the environment because it is synthetic, derived from the unrenewable resource of oil. Fast fashion, since they are constantly creating large amounts of clothing, go thru extreme rates of cotton and polyester, meaning their environmental impact is large.
CONSUMERISM and the LANDFILLS
Personally, I think that one of the worst things about fast fashion is the mindset it instills in the public. Fast fashion creates this idea that things are expendable. They do this by creating new things at a fast rate. Then, when people are out shopping, they see new stuff to buy and think they need it to stay “in.” This, in turn, means people throw a lot of clothing away. Actually, it is estimated that “the average American throws away approximately 80 pounds of clothing and textiles annually, occupying nearly 5% of landfill space” (Bick 2). That is a lot of space in landfills of clothing that will take decades to decompose. Of course, some of the clothing people don’t just throw out. Some are donated, but even that will find its way to the landfill eventually, if it gets sold or not. This is the mindset fast fashion instills in consumers: that everything is made to be thrown away, since there is always something new. As we know, throwing things away is extremely bad for the environment because it packs the landfills.
THE WORKERS
Let’s talk about employees. An industry this big, and is so labor-intensive, obviously employees a lot of people. But, as it can probably be assumed, a company that has no care for the world’s environment also has no care for their employees’ workplace environment.
WORKING CONDITIONS
There is a lot of occupational hazards that come with working in the factories of fast fashion. Employees are often found working “with no ventilation, breathing in toxic substances, inhaling fiber dust or blasted sand in unsafe building” (Sustain Your Style). Inspections of working conditions never pass, but nothing ever comes of it because of nonexistent workers' rights in these third-world countries. As of August 2019, it was reported that only one of every eight factories in Bangladesh passed building and safety inspections (Thomas). These are not good numbers, especially considering the amount of people fast fashion employees in order to turn out large quantities of clothing at fast rates. Because fast fashion moves, well, fast, daily targets must be met and, if not, many employees are subjected to verbal and physical abuse (Sustain Your Style).
COMPENSATION
In order to keep the prices of the clothing low, fast fashion industries cut costs by getting cheap labor by exploiting the world’s poorest countries. Fewer than 2% of garment workers make a living wage (Thomas). This means they cannot afford basic necessities, even though they work 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week (Sustain Your Style). This may seem illegal to many of us, but a lot of clothing is made in places where workers’ rights are nonexistent because that is where the cheap labor is (Sustain your Style).
WHAT TO DO INSTEAD
It’s just not sustainable to support this type of industry. Because sustainability isn’t just defined as using natural resources less wastefully, it also “the practice of satisfying current needs without sacrificing future wellbeing” (Thiele 4). When supporting fast fashion, I think it is clear that the future wellbeing of others (employees) and the world (the environment) is being sacrificed. I think it is important to support the right brands, but I realize it is not always that easy. Going to the mall to find exactly what you’re looking for is easier than going to a second-hand store and shopping for hours, only to leave empty-handed. I get that it is easier. However, I think sustainability is something you can practice some of the time, without the full commitment to the lifestyle, and still make a change. So, here is a list of great alternatives to fast fashion. Things that can still be affordable and up to personal preference.
Thrifting: My favorites include Savers, the Salvation Army, or second-hand stores.
Online Clothing Rentals (Rent the Runway): If you want something more specific than what you’d find at a thrift store, I’d recommend renting clothing. There are several websites where you can subscribe and choose clothing for them to send to you. Then, when you’re done, you just send them back!
Find ways to give your clothes a new life!: Repurpose your old clothing, either for wearing purposes or as fabric for another DIY project.
Slow/Ethical Fashion: Support brands that don’t participate in fast fashion! Look into companies and find what place treats both the environment and their employees ethically. This website lets you check a brands reputation: https://goodonyou.eco
In general, I think this is a good list of questions to ask yourself when shopping…
What kind of fabrics are in this? Does the production of this cause more harm than it’s worth?
What do I know about this brand? Is it ethical?
Do I have something at home already that I could use or repurpose instead of buying new?
In Conclusion…
Change starts with you because where you shop and what you buy matters. It is important to support the right brands and to be aware of where the things you but come from. Fast fashion may seem convenient, especially to those of us that do not have the money or time to shop in other ways. However, this particular convenience comes at the price of knowing you are supporting both human and environmental suffering. The solution could be as simple as not shopping fast fashion, or it could be more complex like working together towards making the industry more sustainable. I think it is hard to know what to do to stop the detrimental impacts of fast fashion. But, what matters, is knowing that there is an issue and working in some way to become more sustainable.
Works Cited
Bick, Rachel, et al. “The Global Environmental Injustice of Fast Fashion.” Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source, vol. 17, no. 1, Dec. 2018, pp. 1-4. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7.
Sustain Your Style. “Working Conditions in the Fashion Industry.” SustainYourStyle, 2017, www.sustainyourstyle.org/old-working-conditions.
Thiele, Leslie Paul. Sustainability. 2nd ed., Polity, 2016.
Thomas, Dana. "REVIEW --- the High Price of 'Fast Fashion' --- Workers and the Planet Suffer as Trendy, Inexpensive Clothes are made Swiftly in Factories in Poor Countries." Wall Street Journal, Aug 31, 2019. ProQuest, https://augie.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://wwwproquestcom.augie.idm.oclc.org/docview/2282742757?accountid=26351.
World Wildlife Fund. “Cotton” World Wildlife Fund,www.worldwildlife.org/industries/cotton.
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