Fast fashion is an environmental nightmare
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A runway knockoff or a cheap t-shirt may seem like a great deal, but when you consider the environmental damage that fast fashion causes, trendy clothes aren’t such a good deal.
The textile industry uses a lot of water and also pollutes waterways around the world. Clothing production is also a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Fast fashion, the rapid production of poor quality clothing, exacerbates these problems as garments often end up in landfills. Shockingly, almost a third of new clothing never makes it to a store and is destroyed before it is put on sale.
“Unfortunately, fast fashion has become very popular with consumers, but it comes at a high price for our planet,” said U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree in the House of Representatives last June. She showed a satellite image of a huge pile of clothing dumped in a landfill in Chile. The clothing came from the U.S., Asia and Europe. As another example, Pingree cited that of the 17 million tons of textiles produced in the U.S. in 2018, more than 11 million ended up in landfills.
To combat these problems, Pingree, along with Representatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington) and Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), announced the formation of the Slow Fashion Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives last month.
Their goal is to convince the clothing industry to reduce its environmental impact. This can be achieved by using fewer raw materials, producing clothing from fibers that require less water and pesticides, and by encouraging the recycling and reuse of fabrics and garments.
Consumers can also do their part by buying less clothing they’re unlikely to ever wear, by buying used or reused clothing, and by investing in more durable, better-made clothing when possible, even if it costs more. This could also benefit the U.S. textile industry, since its goods often cost more than inferior imports from countries with laxer labor and environmental regulations.
According to one analysis, the average American buys 70 items of clothing per year. That’s more than one item of clothing per week. More than 120 billion items of clothing are produced worldwide each year, about 20 for every person on earth. About 30 percent of these are never sold and half of the fast fashion produced ends up in a landfill within a year.
In total, landfill waste and pollution amount to millions of tons. Members of the Slow Fashion Caucus sent a letter to President Joe Biden in July highlighting the environmental impact of fast fashion.
“Capturing the moment with sustainable fashion will not only help the United States lead the way with this economic opportunity, but will also help address some of the significant environmental problems associated with textile and fashion manufacturing,” the group’s letter said. “The fashion and textile industry is estimated to be responsible for about 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, textile waste has increased 80 percent since 2000, making it the fastest-growing waste stream in the country.”
And it is not sustainable. Without changes, the clothing industry could suffer major losses in sales as raw material shortages will lead to production losses in the coming years.
To counteract these trends, the Slow Fashion Caucus proposed several steps the government could take to improve the environmental sustainability of the textile and fashion industry.
The group proposed incentives for sustainable fashion efforts, policies that support innovation and decarbonization in manufacturing, and better regulation of environmentally harmful practices.
“For too long, the so-called fast fashion industry has had free rein to pollute our planet, exploit workers and cheat consumers,” said Pingree at the founding of the Slow Fashion faction at the end of June.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she added. “As legislators, we can create incentives for the apparel industry and consumers to reduce the use of natural resources and to reuse, repair, rewear and recycle textiles.”
We can all help slow the destruction of our planet. Our clothing choices are part of that work.
