The increase in fast fashion comes with a rise in wasted resources and wasted lives, economic inequality, and environmental degradation. The increases are due in part to behavior changes. Each of us can contribute to the solutions.
According to the World Resources Institute, the fashion industry burns or buries in landfills the equivalent of one truckload of clothing or textile material every second. The industry. employs approximately 300 million people, but only a tiny fraction of those workers will ever see a runway at a fashion show in Milan. Most workers in clothing factories work long hours in terrible conditions for low pay. Workers are primarily young women, and in some developing countries, clothing manufacturers employ children in their factories. The average garment worker in Bangladesh earns less than $100 per month.
While workers are paid little on average, more clothes are being manufactured than ever before, in part due to behavioral changes driven by “cheap” clothing. The amount of clothing sold, worn, and cast off has doubled in the last 15 years or so. This increase is due to a rising middle class in countries like China and India, relatively cheap and abundant clothing production, and a rise in people in richer countries wanting to change their clothing styles several times a year instead of just two—winter and summer.
And the clothing manufacturing industry uses a lot of water. Though cotton is natural, compared to clothing made from petrochemicals, which are difficult to recycle and persist in the environment longer, cotton production consumes trillions of gallons of water every year. One cotton t-shirt requires 2,700 liters (731 gallons) of water.
Bending the Clothing Industry Towards Sustainability
Some companies are trying to move the clothing industry towards greater sustainability.
The Good New Network has reported on one company that recycles its products in what you might call a cradle-to-cradle cycle—from t-shirt to t-shirt in this case—supporting what some call a circular economy. BBC Earth recently featured a British clothing supplier, T-Mill, that uses print-on-demand technology to reduce waste significantly. The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute lists 107 fashion and textile manufacturers that meet a high sustainability standard. The Institute takes a holistic approach by considering factors such as the overall environmental conditions of manufacturing and products, as well as the social and economic costs. Cradle to Cradle Institute certifies outstanding companies across many other sectors of the economy, including the automotive industry and paint (Sherwin-Williams).
Act Locally
How can Contra Costa County residents and workers make a more positive economic, human, and environmental impact? Two organizations working directly to drive change in the fashion industry are Remake and Fashion Revolution. From their websites, respectively, “Remake unites changemakers in the fight for human rights and climate justice in the clothing industry.” And “We [Fashion Revolution] believe in a global fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment and values people over growth and profit.” You can follow and support one or both of these organizations.
Many clothing companies now, such as Eileen Fisher, PrAna, and Patagonia, will recycle your used clothing items so they don’t end up in a landfill. Locally, Sports Basement Walnut Creek will take your old shoes, and some of their stores also recycle clothing and other items. (And if you are a member of Sport’s Basement, you can have them forward 10% of the proceeds from the items you buy to non-profits such as Sustainable Contra Costa.) Relay Goods sells shoes returned to the store and unused for up to 60% off the retail price. Returned shoes are in danger of being dumped in a landfill or recycled.
We can each be part of the solution by limiting the amount of clothing we buy and choosing recyclable options. We can support international, national, and local businesses and organizations working to make our future more sustainable, and we can continue to educate ourselves about the problems and solutions to the excesses of fast fashion.
Photo by Francois Le Nguyen on Unsplash.
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