9
May, 2022
fast

Top 3 Reasons To Be Against Fast Fashion

Due to the growing population and the internet age we live in, we spend a lot of money on clothes, which is not always good for our planet. Companies like Forever 21, H&M, and even Zara are major contributors to the fast fashion industry, producing fashionable and cheap clothes that cost our environment a lot of money, as mass production of fashion items is not useful for the planet.

Since these clothes go out of fashion and disappear again with a snap of the fingers, most of them are usually thrown away and end up in the fields. So, without further ado, let’s dive further into this blog and learn more about fast fashion and why you should be against it.

What is it?

fast

Fast fashion is a widespread trend in the fashion industry based on an ultra-fast renewal of collections. Relying on a frantic and unsustainable production rate, some ready-to-wear brands renew their collections every two weeks or less. This practice, inherited from the second half of the twentieth century with the emergence of “lean management” at Toyota, has been imposed over time in all industries. This “disposable” fashion produced at a lower cost has disastrous social and environmental consequences.

The aim is to minimize production costs, manufacture just in time, and reduce supply times to increase profitability. The food sector very quickly adopted this organizational model to create the concept of “fast food” and thus offer to the most significant number of people products of lower quality, manufactured quickly and sold on a global scale. Today, this practice has spread to the fashion industry, and most large textile companies operate according to this dominant “fast fashion” model.

1. Human exploitation

The fast fashion industry usually starts in “third world” countries like Bangladesh and China, and the workers in this industry are exploited and underpaid and considered interchangeable objects. These are the aspects of fast fashion that are not usually talked about because we live in a world where there is nothing wrong as long as white bodies don’t have to suffer.

Hundreds of people die every year as a result of the fast fashion industry. The young fashion industry employs mostly young women from developing countries, 80% of whom are between 18 and 24 years old. Some factories even employ underage children, who are naturally underpaid and exploited. To understand the exploitation of these people, let me give you a concrete example: in 2013, an eight-story building collapsed in Bangladesh, killing 1134 workers and injuring more than 2500 others.

That didn’t even make the international news. Why, you ask? Because developed countries have always benefited from the labor of black and brown people. This news did not make a big splash in international waters. After all, it wasn’t seen as something to get upset about because white people weren’t hurt in the process, but they were profiting from this inhumane business.

2. Fast fashion is an ecological scourge

fast

The fashion industry is considered the second most polluting sector in the world, directly after the oil industry. With an average of 52 collections per year for some brands, our fashion is disposable and hardly recyclable. Its production is a heresy for the planet: cotton and polyester, which make up the majority of our clothes, are not biodegradable.

They are very energy-consuming; they pollute water, underwater environments, and consequently, our food chain. Enjoy your meal, of course. Child labor, relocation, extreme working conditions, miserable wages… In the Philippines, for example, textile workers are paid $0.88 per hour, $2 in Bangladesh. Should we really accept that people suffer to produce our clothes?

3. We just don’t need that many clothes!

Fifty years ago, we bought about 25 clothes a year. Today, we buy… 80 every year. Scary, isn’t it? Every year, we buy more than 80 billion clothes in the world. Take 5 minutes and open your closet. Count the number of jeans you own, the number of T-shirts you wear, and all the other clothes you may not have removed the tags from yet. So, what’s the bottom line?

Have you also noticed that even at Zara, prices are going up severely? Fast fashion brands are starting to create their capsule collections, raising their prices and demands. The quality, however, does not change. The conditions of production of these clothes do not change either.

Final thoughts

fast

Personally, I only shop at thrift stores these days, and when I buy clothes at a store, I do my due diligence beforehand and do research, and avoid shopping at fashion brands that profit from the fast fashion industry. Sound off in the comments section below and tell us what you want to read next and if you want to read more about fast fashion and its impact on our planet.

3
Feb, 2021

Fast Fashion: How Do My Clothes Affect the Planet?

When we buy new clothes, we are guided by fashion trends, if we look good or if the prices seem affordable. Very rarely do we buy our clothes thinking about where and how it was produced, if it affects the environment in any way or if it was manufactured, respecting workers’ rights, and paying fair wages. Fast fashion is at the forefront of fashion and provides low prices that make it accessible to many people. However, there is a history of environmental damage and social injustice that big brands are not telling us!

The Fashion Industry Contributes 10% of Global Emissions.

Life Beyond Plastics: How Fashion is Killing Our Rivers

The fashion industry is the second most polluting in the world, only behind the oil company. What is this about? To an accelerated and massive production of garments linked to overconsumption, fueled by the trends and new collections that appear every year. In other words, the big fast fashion brands use market strategies to keep us buying and consuming non-stop, and they can maximize their profits. An example of this is perceived obsolescence, which implies leading consumers to think that a product is obsolete, even if it is still functional, just because it does not comply with the fashion or dominant trend. This leads us to the fact that even though we already have two black skirts in perfect condition, we want to buy a new one just because that new design is in fashion. This excess consumption of products leads to environmental impacts such as:

  • Greater extraction of natural resources to continue manufacturing new garments and meet demand adds greenhouse gas emissions during the extraction of raw material, manufacturing, transportation, and product disposal. The UN indicates that the fashion industry contributes 10% of global emissions.

  • Extensive Water Pollution:  According to Greenpeace, the textile industry is one of the largest users of hazardous chemicals and one of the industries that pollute the most freshwater globally. Our garments’ production is behind multicolored rivers due to the spillage of water contaminated by the dyeing processes; the spilled substances are possible carcinogens and hormonal disruptors that can harm nearby communities’ health.

  • Release of Microplastics and Microfibers Into the Environment: Many of our garments are made from various plastic types. When they are washed, they can shed microplastics into our water bodies; the same happens with other synthetic or organic materials released as microfibers. According to research from the University of Toronto, a single pair of jeans sheds an average of 56,000 microfibers per wash cycle, and this massive amount of microscopic dirt seems to accumulate in the Arctic. Whenever a garment is washed, a small amount of lint is spilled and comes off with the clothes.

  • A Large Generation of Waste: In the last 15 years, the number of times we wear our garments again has fallen by 36%. That means that we reuse our clothes less and less. Motivated by changes in trends and new collections, many people overconsume low-quality garments that will quickly go out of style and be discarded when the new season arrives. According to this are the low recycling percentages, in Mexico of only 5% according to CEMDA data, nearly 80% of discarded clothing ends up in landfills or incinerated.Why Sustainable Fashion is the Only Way - SustyVibes

These data show that the clothes we wear are indeed harming the planet, in addition to the fact that many fast fashion brands sell garments produced by cheap labor from exploited people, including boys and girls, in developing countries. Every time you find a bargain at the mall, this low price reflects the fair wages that brands are not paying workers as well as the environmental damage that companies do and do not do.

Therefore, now that the Good End is coming and a time of excessive consumption begins (Black Friday, Christmas, Three Kings Day, etc.), try to look for clothes without this broad environmental and social footprint:

  • Who said we need new clothes to dress in style? Buying second-hand clothes is an excellent option to keep clothes in use and prevent them from reaching landfills;

  • If you have possibilities, look for Mexican brands of sustainable clothing, which offer carefully manufactured garments to reduce their environmental impacts and also are of higher quality and will last much longer;

  • Exchange, donate and give someone else the clothes you no longer want to have in your closet. You can exchange with your friends and family, donate clothes to organizations (of girls and boys, migrants, women) that need them, or look for online ventures that create barter and exchange communities;

  • Repair or renew the clothes you already have so that you can give them a new life. What is no longer useful to you will undoubtedly help someone else and be good for our planet.