By Renee Murphy
What is fast fashion? Fast fashion is defined as a design, manufacturing, and marketing method focused on rapidly producing high volumes of clothing (thegoodtrade.com). According to The Good Trade, there are four elements of fast fashion, which include trend replication, rapid production, low quality, competitive pricing. It is important to keep these elements in mind as we further discuss how these have major harmful effects on the environment. Examples of fast fashion include brands such as Forever21, H&M, Shein, Topshop, and Zara. These companies produce an average of 52 micro-seasons, or one new collection a week, (thegoodtrade.com). Throughout fashion history, it is typical that companies/brands create two to four seasons a year. However, the new excessive practice is due to the increase of clothing production by double since the year 2000. Although the idea of consistently updated content, and the ability to buy such clothes at a cheap price sound great, the negative impact on the environment weighs a lot heavier.
Fast fashion has an environmental impact through every production step due to water, material, chemical, and energy used (nature.com). According to Business Insider, about 85% of textiles produced from fast fashion each year end up in a landfill. The resulting number in the United States is about 11 million tons of clothing being thrown out each year. Whether this waste is incinerated or left in a landfill, it’s impact ripples through all areas of life. Approximately 60% of textiles contain polyester, which releases two to three times more carbon emission and do not break down in the ocean, which is where we find most of our landfill going. The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions (businessinsider.com). These two elements alone make the fashion industry, especially fast fashion, one of the world’s leading industries aiding in polluting the planet. Yet, this industry is also leading in water consumption and pollution. “The fashion industry is also the second-largest consumer of water worldwide,” (businessinsider.com). This makes more sense when it is understood that fabrics, mainly cotton, require a lot of water to grow. For example, to produce a pair of jeans it takes approximately 2,000 gallons of water. With fast fashion, this water use grows exponentially since they are producing more clothes, more frequently than ever before. If this was not upsetting enough, it is unfortunate that this industry is also the world’s second-largest polluter of water due to the dyeing process used for producing textiles. These impacts are heavily felt by the environment, and we, as consumers, must put in a better effort to slow down the deterioration of the planet by addressing and changing how we shop.
There is a multitude that we can do to bring “slow fashion” back and limit the production of textiles that will inevitably end up in the ocean or landfill, but we must first recognize that the corporations must be held accountable since they are allowing and continuing to pollute the planet. It is the leaders of these industries that must make changes before it is too late. However, as consumers we can start practices such as donating, thrifting, upcycling, and ultimately stop giving business to companies that use fast fashion production methods. With these small steps, we can hopefully start to restore the damage we have done to the planet.
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