At three dollars, when it’s likely to to fall apart after one wear, is the cost of that shirt really worth your money or the planet? That’s less than $1 a wear and far more than what the planet can give.
For the majority of people who live in “first world” countries shopping has become a past time that we regularly engage in but rarely, if ever, think about what we’re doing. Beyond color and fit it’s fair to say the thing people are most concerned with while shopping is which store the clothes came from. Not concern for the factory it was made in, the person who sewed it, how the fabric was made and dyed, or what happens to the clothes once they’re thrown out. A person now buys, on average, 60% more clothes than someone from the early 2000’s bought, but we’ve worn and end up keeping less than one fourth of that amount. This buy-and-promptly-discard mentality results in trillions of pounds of clothes ending up in landfills every year.
This problem is perpetuated by the apparel industry’s current mode of money making coined as “fast fashion”. People used to own fewer clothes of better quality and mend those clothes numerous times instead of buying new clothes. The issue now is that clothes are poor quality and get damaged or fall apart quickly. This is how fast fashion turns a profit. Companies send the manufacturing of their clothes over to “third world” countries where they can produce the pieces for ridiculously cheap and then ship them back over to the States or Europe where they’re sold. Most people are aware of this part of the fashion cycle. There’s been increased news coverage over the past couple decades about the conditions of clothing factories, most famously was the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh that killed more than 2,000 people and wounded many more. What makes this fast fashion is that the clothes aren’t meant to last long, clothing companies produce new styles or patterns almost daily and want consumers coming back to the stores for them. Clothes now are meant to be replaced quickly with the newest trend. Fast fashion is marketed as an economic alternative for people to save money and live better but in the long run it costs the consumer more to buy cheaper trendy clothes instead of pieces that will last for many years.
Environmentally speaking fast fashion is a strain as well. GMO grown cotton is produced year round to fill the need for fabric and is sprayed constantly with pesticides that have been proven to be linked to cancer. It takes about 2,700 liters of water to produce one shirt (that’s about the amount the average person will drink in two and a half years), most of that water is used to dye fabric. For most factories that fabric dye isn’t cleaned out of the water properly and makes its way into the water cycle. Polyester fabric is used to make tons of pounds of clothes every year and requires large amounts of crude oil to produce. Since polyester is plastic when it’s washed microscopic fragments come off of the fabric and get mixed into the water. These fragments are called micro-plastic and are so small that filter screens won’t catch them; from there they enter into the water cycle.
It wouldn’t be fair to drop all that information and run; how can the typical fashion consumer help these problems? First, take advantage of second hand shops and swapping clothes with friends. This goes for how you get rid of unwanted clothes as well, the website USagain even helps find recycling places for unwearable, unwanted clothes. Second is when you want to buy new make sure what you’re buying is made to last. There’s a growing trend by independent fashion producers to try to counter act fast fashion. Sometimes it’s referred to as slow fashion, ethical fashion, or sustainable fashion; these are subtly different concepts but all end up with the same idea of lessening the impact that the fashion industry has on the world environment.
Sustainable: Concentrates on the environment; effects of production, how the fabric is made, what dyes are used, how the water used is treated, etc.
Slow: Concentrates on style; quality of the design, durable fabrics, no fluctuating trends, etc. Usually well-made basics that are always wearable.
Ethical: Concentrates on human rights; how the cotton is grown, how workers are treated and paid, etc. Sometimes this can mean no animal products used like leather if the consumer’s ethics are in line with veganism.
Third is to educate yourself as much as possible. Opt for natural materials like cotton, hemp, silk, etc. A simple Google search for ethical and sustainable clothing brands brings up an ever growing list of companies dedicated to you looking great and caring for the planet. Most aren’t as expensive as you’d assume either. A recent documentary, The True Cost, is becoming increasingly popular for clearly and concisely showcasing the issues of fast fashion companies both ethically and environmentally. There’s also many TEDx Talks on Youtube about the subject. Knowing what you buy, where is goes, and who it effects is an important part of lowering your world impact.
Eco-Minded 