
Why Should Fast Fashion No Longer be Supported?
What is Fast Fashion?
Fast fashion is a term used to describe clothing that is quickly produced and sold at affordable prices, often mimicking the latest runway styles. This approach allows retailers to keep up with current trends and offer a wide variety of products to consumers at a fraction of the cost of high-end designer pieces.
How Does Fast Fashion Work?
The fast fashion model involves the entire process from design to distribution being expedited. This means that new styles can hit stores in a matter of weeks, rather than months, allowing consumers to stay on top of the latest trends without breaking the bank.
Impact of Fast Fashion
While fast fashion offers affordability and accessibility to consumers, it also comes with environmental and ethical concerns. The quick turnover of styles leads to a high volume of clothing waste, as trends quickly become outdated and discarded.
Additionally, the fast fashion industry has been criticized for its use of cheap labor and poor working conditions in garment factories, particularly in developing countries where regulations may be lax.
The Rise of Fast Fashion
The term "fast fashion" gained popularity in the early 1990s with the arrival of brands like Zara, known for their ability to quickly produce and distribute trendy clothing. Since then, the fast fashion model has become a dominant force in the industry, shaping the way we consume and perceive fashion.
As consumers become more aware of the impact of their purchasing decisions, there has been a growing movement towards sustainable and ethical fashion practices. By supporting brands that prioritize transparency and sustainability, we can help shape a more responsible and conscious fashion industry.
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The biggest players in the fast fashion world include Zara, Shein, UNIQLO, Forever 21, and H&M.
Three Reasons “Fast Fashion” is No Good.
1. Exploit workers
2. Bad for the environment
3. End up in landfills
Exploitation of Workers
Garment workers, 80% of whom are women, face poverty, complex working conditions, and continuous violations of their rights. At the same time, the legislation of their country (usually developing countries and not only) often fails to protect them.
Exploitation may include:
- Meager minimum wage
- Forced labor
- Excessive working hours
- Lack of contracts and social security
- Lack of safe working conditions
- Harassment of women workers
- Violation of freedom of association
- Child labor
Child labor is common in the industry, with estimates of the number of child garment workers in the millions.
According to Fashion Revolution, most garment workers earning low wages cannot afford basic human needs such as food, housing, and healthcare.
Good on You explains that in China the legal minimum wage is still far below a living wage. In Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Indonesia, wages are only a quarter to half of what a worker needs to live a decent life.
Modern Slavery
According to the United Nations, modern slavery refers to situations of exploitation in which people find themselves and cannot refuse or leave due to threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power.
In accordance to the International Labor Organization (ILO), about 50 million people are victims of this type of exploitation, which has increased in recent years as a result of the fast fashion economic model based on overproduction, putting pressure on the supply chain that cannot meet the usual operations.
Garment factory in Bangladesh
According to the Global Slavery Index 2023 report, this slavery is present in industries characterized by informality.
Nearly two-thirds of all forced labor cases are related to global supply chains, and most of these forced labor cases are found at the lowest levels of supply chains, such as the extraction of raw materials and production stages.
“A living wage is not a luxury, it is a fundamental human right.
Fashion Revolution.”
Bad for The Environment
Fast fashion brands encourage overconsumption and contribute to environmental degradation.
During production, there are lots of waste factors including textile waste and textile dyeing. According to the U.N. Environment Program, 20% of global wastewater comes from textile dyeing and then the wastewater ends up in rivers and oceans, making the water dangerous for wildlife.
Factory photo by Lukas Schulze/Getty Images
Fast Fashion and Its Environmental Impact
1. Water
The environmental impact of fast fashion comprises the depletion of non-renewable sources, emission of greenhouse gases and the use of massive amounts of water and energy. The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer industry of water, requiring about 700 gallons to produce one cotton shirt and 2,000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans.
Business Insider also cautions that textile dyeing is the world’s second-largest polluter of water, since the water leftover from the dyeing process is often dumped into ditches, streams or rivers.
2. Microplastics
Furthermore, brands use synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon and acrylic which take hundreds of years to biodegrade. A 2017 report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimated that 35% of all microplastics – tiny pieces of non-biodegradable plastic – found in the ocean come from the laundering of synthetic textiles like polyester.
According to 2015 documentary The True Cost, the world consumes around 80 billion new pieces of clothing every year, 400% more than the consumption twenty years ago. The average American now generates 82 pounds of textile waste each year. The production of leather requires large amounts of feed, land, water and fossil fuels to raise livestock, while the tanning process is among the most toxic in all of the fashion supply chain because the chemicals used to tan leather- including mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives and various oils and dyes- is not biodegradable and contaminates water sources.
3. Energy
The production of making plastic fibers into textiles is an energy-intensive process that requires large amounts of petroleum and releases volatile particulate matter and acids like hydrogen chloride. Additionally, cotton, which is in a large amount of fast fashion products, is also not environmentally friendly to manufacture. Pesticides deemed necessary for the growth of cotton presents health risks to farmers.
To counter this waste caused by fast fashion, more sustainable fabrics that can be used in clothing include wild silk, organic cotton, linen, hemp and lyocell
Landfills
Women search for usable clothes amid tons of discarded items in Chile’s Atacama desert — famous as a fast fashion dumping ground — in Alto Hospicio, Iquicio, Chile in September 2021 (AFP)
Mountains of discards reshape the landscape outside Alto Hospicio. Each year tons of clothing is added. Much of it is made from non-biodegradable synthetics and will remain part of the Atacama for generations.
- Synthetic fibers in fast fashion can take up to 100 years to decompose, emitting carbon dioxide and methane.
- The average American throws away approximately 80 pounds of clothing annually, occupying nearly 5% of landfill space.
- Non-biodegradable fabrics from discarded clothing can sit in landfills for up to 200 years.
- It takes 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton shirt, contributing to environmental impact.