The Dangers of Fast Fashion

With summer just around the corner and inflation on the rise, students are looking for cute, cheap clothes and fast fashion delivers. Fast fashion is cheap and fashionable clothing that moves quickly from design to retail stores in order to keep up with social media’s everchanging trends¹.

Sounds harmless enough, right? Well, not quite.

Since fast fashion is fueled by consumers’ hunger for keeping up with trends, significant brands like Shein, Forever 21, Uniqlo, Nike and H&M resort to environmentally destructive and socially exploitative manufacturing methods with harmful, if not lethal, repercussions².

Did you know that according to The Roundup, at least 7% of the waste in Earth’s landfills is from clothes? Or that in the US alone, 21 billion pounds (or 9.52543977 billion kilograms) of clothing are generated annually, but only 15% are donated or recycled³? Or that one kilogram of cotton (a primary clothing material) uses 20,000 liters of water, approximately enough water that a family of four drinks in 7 years⁴? This exorbitant amount of waste is all produced because of one common enemy; fast fashion.

The fast fashion industry depletes communities of their drinking water supply and contaminates it, making it non potable.

In a study by Us, the principal cause of water pollution when producing clothes is the “wetprocessing” stage when the fabric is printed, dyed and finished. This process submerges the materials in over 8,000 synthetic chemicals and the water to aid in this process is (unsurprisingly, but disappointingly) dumped back into rivers and other waterways.

It has been predicted that 20% of the world’s water pollution is produced by this dyeing process. Around 70% of China’s freshwater has been contaminated by over 2.5 billion gallons of wastewater created by the fast fashion industry. Another way fast fashion is destroying the environment is through greenhouse gas emissions. According to UNFCCC, around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions result from textiles slowly decomposing in landfills releasing methane and carbon dioxide.

Since fast fashion has become a staple in our everyday life, major contributors to it are taking virtually zero action against textile waste and it has been predicted that by the end of the decade, the industry’s emissions will double according to Igini from Earth.org.

Fast fashion brands exploit local and underserved communities in countries with less regulations. With few other job options, people work in unsafe conditions and can be verbally, physically and sexually abused. In 2016, Vice’s investigations into H&M sweatshops in Cambodia and India reported women losing their jobs for becoming pregnant.

Furthermore, with fast fashion retailers only looking to increase their profit margins, manufacturers keep wages unlivable, forcing workers to work over 16 hours a day. China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines have even been reported for child labor⁵ .

Now, next time you are thinking of following the newest TikTok trend and buying an entirely new wardrobe from Shein, remember just how many people were exploited for clothes that will end up in a landfill in a few months.

article by Noa Gomberg

Sources

¹Investopedia. (2023). Fast Fashion Explained and How It Impacts Retail Manufacturing. [online]

²Rebecca (2019). A Complete List of 25 Fast Fashion Brands to Avoid and Why. [online] Minimalism Made Simple. ³Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Textile Recovery in the United States: A Roadmap to Circularity

⁴Igini, M. (2022). 10 Concerning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics. [online] Earth.org.

⁵Assoune, A. (2021). Fast Fashion Social Impacts And How It Affects Society. [online] Panaprium.