4Rs Tips for May 28 – What Is Fast Fashion and Why We Need To Avoid It

Fast fashion and the apparel industry cause about 10% of emissions and a lot of other environmental damage.

Fast fashion takes over

It crept up on us; a form of waste that barely existed when I was a kid or even a young adult… clothing. I always thought clothes were meant for long-term use, a durable good you kept for years and then donated or cut up to use as rags or for crafts.

Most people don’t see clothes this way anymore, and a big contributor is fast fashion. This mass-production industry of trendy clothes promotes wearing a garment one or two times and then tossing it. These clothes are poor quality and made to be disposable, which gives them less chance of being resold or lasting as a second-hand garment if donated.

How and why did it happen?

What has become known as fast fashion grew out of a number of factors. From lower manufacturing costs to social media influencers and increased demand for disposable apparel.

At the start of the 2000’s the majority of goods started going up in price, by as much as 50% in less than 15 years, but the cost of clothing went down during that same time. This data from the book Fashionopolis – The Secrets Behind the Clothes We Wear by Dana Thomas was shared in an article from One Planet Life that tells how clothing costs dropped due to a few key factors.

• Cheap labor costs in parts of the world, like South America and Asia, were a driving force that made it easy to produce clothes for less.
  • In the 90s, apparel manufacturers moved to countries where human labor could easily be exploited. 
  • In the US alone 75% of the clothing manufacturing jobs were lost due to this shift.
• In the late twentieth century, technological advances brought down apparel production costs. These innovations made it easier to use fossil fuel materials, like polyester (plastic), to make cheap knock-off clothes. They allowed for faster production changes to keep up with quick–moving fashion trends.
  • Manufacturers could fill the knock-off market demand fast and cheaply.
• As social media entered the scene, a surge of influencer marketing brought a huge uptick in trendy clothes purchases that continues to grow. 
• The old ways of releasing new fashions with the seasons were no more. New styles started being released almost weekly.

All of this meant that over the last two decades, clothing purchases have increased by over 50% in developed countries, like the UK and the US.

Why Is Fast Fashion So Bad?

In order to make it cheap, fast fashion primarily uses materials derived from fossil fuels, like polyester. These highly toxic materials damage the planet throughout the product lifecycle – meaning when they’re extracted or mined AND when they end up in landfills. And yet, the fast fashion business model is based on clothes being disposed of and replaced quickly.

• The industry causes approximately 10% of all global carbon emissions. 
• It uses environmentally harmful dyes to color clothes and is one of the biggest causes of water contamination.
• The textiles and garment industry is the second largest user of our water supply. Only fruit and vegetable farming uses more.
• The amount of clothing waste has escalated over the past few decades in noticeable ways. This National Geographic article, Fast fashion goes to die in the world’s largest fog desert. The scale is breathtaking and gives a stark realization as to what happens to unwanted clothes.
• The disposal of clothing is only one of the ways plastics (aka polyester) get into our environment. Another serious problem is the microplastics that end up in our water from washing clothes made with polyester and plastic, a.k.a. fossil fuels. Some ways to prevent this damage are:
  • Stick to all-natural, organic clothes that won’t damage the planet when you do laundry. Use plant-based detergent or laundry sheets.
  • Wash your clothes less. You only need to wash them when they get dirty or stink – THAT’S IT.
  • Air dry your clothes on a line, if you have the outdoor space.
  • Check out these other tips from TreeHugger.com on 11 Ways to Green Your Laundry.

See the Take Action section below for more ideas and tips on how to reduce the damage our clothes are doing.

Take Action – Avoid Fast Fashion and Learn More

If you have a favorite store or brand you like to shop for, do a search on how sustainable it is. If it’s not planet-friendly you might want to find a new favorite. Maybe try shopping at thrift stores 😉

• Most thrift stores are non-profits benefiting people who need assistance. Some popular thrift stores now have online offerings, like Goodwill or The Salvation Army.
  • Here are tips on how to Thrift Shop Like a Pro
  • This Readers Digest article gives tips on ow to Shop thrift stores.
• Online thrift stores, like ThredUp, have become very popular.
• Don’t throw clothes out. Check out this article, How & Where To Recycle Old Clothes: 17 Brands Recycling Your Textiles
• Find out how to earn from your old clothes by reading, 8 Retailers That Reward You For Recycling Clothes. Most are free and give you a store credit.

Learn More

Listen to reports on the research behind the damage caused by our clothing industry.

• Listen to this episode of The Indisposable Podcast from Upstream Solutions on the fashion and apparel industry’s contribution to waste and the people who are working to change it.
• This interview with the author of Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes and why a young reader’s version was released.
• Check out this YouTube video from EthicalConsumer.org called Five things you need to know about fast fashion and learn some of the key talking points you can use to help others understand why it’s so important we stop supporting this industry.
• Check out the Clean Clothes Campaign centered on the fair labor movement in the apparel and sportswear industries. See their Action page for ways to voice your support over social media and in other ways.
• If you’re someone who’s interested in tracking your carbon footprint, there are apps for that, you should include calculating the impact of clothes you throw out. This should include the types of materials they’re made of.

Make a difference by sharing this information with your friends and family who care about the planet and may not know these facts.

Why It’s Important

There are many human activities that cause greenhouse gas emissions, but we often don’t think about what we buy, like our clothes, as one of them. 

The biggest cause of climate change is carbon emissions. If we stopped buying disposable clothes we could cut out one-tenth of these emissions!

With Much Gratitude

That’s it for this issue. I hope you found it helpful.

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Thank you for reading these tips and subscribing. Pat yourself on the back for doing your part. Remember, everything helps.

We’ve got this!

All my best,
Jen
jen.thilman@gmail.com 

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