Is cheap fast fashion ethical?

How safe are fast fashion factories, how fair are workers’ wages, and how wasteful and harmful is fast fashion to our environment.

What is Fast Fashion?

Fast fashion is how designers and retailers are striving to keep consumers consuming more and more. For example, in the early 2000’s, Zara started to bring out new items of clothing twice a week. Fashion brands used to produce clothing for seasons, now they produce multiple ranges in each season.

Trends

Trends certainly aren’t helping either. With social media apps being more popular, trends have become an important thing. Trends happen often on social media; someone will start a trend and many others will follow. This means that people will always be getting new clothes depending on what is trending. People dispose of their clothes at a much greater rate and there will be a lot more waste in the landfill.

Natural Resources

After farming, fashion is the industry which uses the most natural resources. For example, every pair of jeans has to be washed in ten thousand litres of water. Villages in India don’t have enough water whilst fast fashion factories in India are using millions of litres of water.

Fires and pay

There are many risks for the workers in the factories. Fires like the Dhaka garment factory happen due to factories being built cheaply and not having fire escapes. Places like Boohoo have not met safety regulations, have been accused of underpaying, and an unsafe workplace during the height of the pandemic.

The Environment

Cheap fast fashion is incredibly bad for the environment. The industry uses excessive amounts of natural resources such as water, not to mention how most of the fashion we throw away ends up in a landfill. The fumes that come from factories are polluting our planet and although fast fashion is cheaper, the planet is paying the price. While people brought sixty percent more garments in 2014 than in 2000, they only kept the clothes for half as long.

Workers and their safety

Workers are a big part of every company, and in the fast fashion industry they aren’t always treated fairly. Although big sales are good, it usually doesn’t mean anything great for the employees. A big brand called Pretty Little Thing had a sale where their clothes were 99% off, and this caused concern for the workers, and where their wages were coming from.

What is good about fast fashion?

Fast fashion can be a really useful source for people who can’t necessarily afford the big brands, in a way, some people couldn’t survive without affordable fast fashion. It is also good for everyday life. For example, playing in the garden, as it wouldn’t be a big loss if the clothes got dirty.

What can we do?

What can the consumer do? Well, the simplest thing is: try to not purchase cheap fast fashion, but it’s not that easy. Some people around the world depend on cheap fast fashion as they can’t afford the big brands so getting rid of it completely would be devastating for some families. Buying clothes from charity shops instead is a good option; you are saving the clothes from the landfill and, although a single person can’t do much, it still makes a difference.

Conclusion

I personally think that we should not be supporting fast fashion. My reason for this is because the damage it has and will cause the environment, and the fact that in some cases workers are not even getting paid the minimum wage. There are some positives but the negatives by far outweigh them.