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Impact of Fast Fashion on the Global Environment
Fast fashion, the rapid production of inexpensive clothing to keep up with the latest trends, has become a dominant force in the global apparel industry. While it offers consumers affordable and trendy clothing, its environmental impact is profound and alarming. The fast fashion model promotes overconsumption, encouraging consumers to purchase new items frequently and discard old ones quickly, leading to an unsustainable cycle of production and waste. One of the most significant environmental concerns associated with fast fashion is the enormous amount of textile waste it generates. According to estimates, millions of tons of clothing end up in landfills each year, often made from non-biodegradable synthetic fibers like polyester that take hundreds of years to decompose. This constant cycle of production and disposal contributes to an ever-growing waste problem. Fast fashion also places a heavy strain on natural resources. The production of cheap garments often relies on environmentally harmful practices, including excessive water consumption, the use of toxic chemicals, and the cultivation of cotton and other materials in ways that damage ecosystems. For example, the fashion industry is responsible for a significant portion of global water usage, with large amounts required to grow cotton and dye fabrics. The pollution from dyeing processes often ends up in rivers and waterways, contaminating local water sources and harming aquatic life. In addition, the carbon footprint of fast fashion is considerable. The industry is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to energy-intensive manufacturing processes and the global transportation networks required to move clothing around the world. The fast fashion supply chain, which often relies on cheap labor in countries with lax environmental regulations, exacerbates the environmental toll of garment production. The impact of fast fashion on the global environment is undeniable, but it has also sparked a growing movement toward more sustainable practices in the fashion industry. Ethical fashion, slow fashion, and the rise of second-hand clothing markets offer alternatives that prioritize eco-friendly materials, fair labor practices, and reduced environmental footprints. Reducing the harm caused by fast fashion requires a shift in consumer behavior, as well as a rethinking of how clothing is produced, consumed, and disposed of. By embracing more sustainable choices, individuals and the fashion industry alike can help mitigate the environmental damage caused by fast fashion.
FASION
11/17/20246 min read
Introduction
Fast fashion is one of the fastest-spreading industries across the globe for the last hundred years. It offers cheap clothes that match up with the new fashions to the consumers. Although it is so cheap, it comes at a huge cost in the environment. This fast fashion business model generates speed and low-cost over sustainability, increasing such severe environmental consequences like overproduction, waste, pollution, and use of non-renewable resources (Niinimäki et al., 2020). This paper explores the harmful effects of chemical dyes and synthetic fabrics present in fast fashion and advances some alternatives to sustainable fashion that also set conclusions and recommendations to reduce the footprint of the fast fashion industry.
1. Overproduction and waste in the fast fashion industry
The key ecological issues with fast fashion are overproduction. They make sure these fast fashion brands like Zara, H&M, and Forever 21 produce absolutely huge amounts of new collection pieces every year; in some cases, there are a few fast fashion brands that produce new clothes each week (Claudio, 2007). The mass production cycle sees many clothing items overproduced and most the times end up in the landfills or incinerators when they are unsold.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that the amount of waste textiles collected for landfills or incineration is as many as one garbage truck every second. Fast-fashion garments also have horrible quality with normally very poor, synthetic materials, therefore creating a throwaway society in which clothes are used merely to be thrown away once used a few times. This waste also increases the environmental damage, since synthetic fibers might take hundreds of years to degrade and emit microplastics, which are harmful to human health, during their degradation process (Browne et al., 2011).
2. Pollution related to the textile industries
Among all the industries polluting the environment, among the most polluting ones around the world with high levels of air, water, and soil pollution, are the fast-fashion industries. It is related to the usage of such a vast quantity of water and energy and the enormous quantity of chemicals used in this manufacture. According to the World Bank, the textile industry is responsible for around 20% of all types of industrial water pollution that occurs in the world, mainly due to the dyeing and finishing processes (Kant, 2012).
2.1 Chemical Dyes and Their Impact on the Environment
Chemical dyes that are applied in the textile industries are hazardous, especially heavy metals and azo dyes, which blend into the water resources through rivers and streams as effluent are not treated properly but have been associated by Kant in 2012 since many of these chemicals may negatively affect aquatic ecosystems and negatively affect life in plants and animals. For example, if a river falls in a congested textile-producing area, such as Citarum River of Indonesia, it shall highly be polluted and thus produce harmful results on communities or wildlife in that area.
Synthetic fibers are polyester, nylon, and acrylic. These are very affordable, yet tough, cheap, and durable. The use of synthetic fibers, based on a non-renewable resource-in other words, petroleum-based-is a cause for concern. It contributes to the micro plastic threat that is injuring aquatic animals and moving along the food chain to destroy human beings also as well (Browne et al., 2011).
3. Environmental Impact of Using Non-Renewable Resources
The production of synthetic fibers such as polyester is energy-intensive and fossil-fuel-based, and is accompanied by various types of environmental impacts which include greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change (Shen, Worrell, & Patel, 2010). This industry contributes about 10% of the global's carbon footprint with a vast amount released into the atmosphere that it forms much of the greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming (Niinimäki et al., 2020).
A third factor involves obtaining raw materials for cheap fast fashion apparel, like cotton, through massive water resources, lands, and pesticides. The other byproducts involved with intensive farming practices and excessive use of pesticides were soil loss, water scarcity, and loss of biodiversity. More water is consumed in the production process for one t-shirt made out of cotton than it does to have it in the garment. Chapagain et al explained that it takes nearly 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton t-shirt.
4. Case Studies on Fast Fashion Brands and the effects on the Environment
There are so many fast fashion brands that people criticize not to be environment-friendly. Amongst them include:
- H&M: This year, H&M revealed to have US$4.3 billion-worth of unsold clothing, which reinforces skepticism about over-production and waste (Bloomberg, 2018). The company has indeed set up recycling, but most of the collected clothes still do not go back into new products because recycling technology has not developed enough to process mixed fiber cloths usually used in fast fashion apparels.
- Zara: The Spanish company Zara manufactures close to 24 collections of clothing a year under the leader of fast fashion, which further develops the culture of disposability and wastes that result from over-accelerated cycles of production (Claudio, 2007). Even though Zara claims to continue using more environmentally friendly products, such fast cycle procedures still harm the sustainability of the company.
5. Sustainable Options: Slow Fashion and Eco-Friendly Materials
Slow fashion is the alternative to fast fashion, which leaves room for sustainability where the quality prevails against the need for quantity and ethical and environmentally friendly practices. Slow fashion will call action for the consumer towards fewer, better pieces made to last longer hence reducing total clothing demanded and waste generated (Fletcher, 2010).
5.1 Sustainable use of Fabrics
Eco-friendly materials, organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, and recycled polyester, have minimal environmental impacts in contrast to conventional fabrics. Organic cotton does not include synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, thereby saving much water and deterioration of soil is slowed down (Textile Exchange, 2017). Third, recycled polyester is derived from post-consumer plastic bottles that prevent waste from plastic from going into landfills and are less dependent on non-renewable sources (Shen, Worrell, & Patel, 2010).
5.2 Ethical Fashion Brands
A significant percentage of fashion brands embrace sustainability and have condemned fast fashion. The following are some examples of such brands:
- Patagonia: Patagonia is widely praised for its emphasis on sustainability. Incidentally, the company urges the purchase of fewer pieces, constructs its garments to be repaired, and recycles in the process of its clothing manufacturing, hence reducing firm environmental footprint (Chouinard & Stanley, 2012).
Eileen Fisher: This brand employs environment-friendly material, responsible manufacturing, and transparency in supply chains. Eileen Fisher's "Renew" program collects, cleans, and sells used clothing as part of a closed-loop fashion system (Eileen Fisher, 2021).
6. What is being done to address the Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion?
To address the environmental impact of fast fashion, consumer action, policymakers and industry leadership will play a part. Here are calls to action:
1. Consumers: Choose quality, long-lasting garments that friendly to the environment. Shop only what you need; and choose not to shop from slow fashion brands or share your clothes in clothing swaps or join recycling programs.
2. Policymakers: Establish and improve rules regarding the disposal of textile waste, and fashion companies should continue their environmental friendly practice. Incentives are available for those businesses that engage in eco-friendly production and invests in recycling technologies.
3. "Fashion Industry": Design the product to be recyclable, to interact with green materials, transparent supply chain, and sensitizing the consumers about the environmental implication of their clothes.
Conclusion
Fast fashion doesn't stand right on the side of the environment; it is dangerous and increases more disposals of most wastes produced, pollutes its environment, and exhausts nonrenewable resources. These can be fought with a surge towards slow fashion and sustainable materials. Only responsible consumption behavior, promotion of responsible brands, and a call for policy change can ensure that such measures come into existence when taken collectively by consumers and businesses in unison to reduce the shadow of the fashion industry and help build a better future.
References
- Bloomberg (2018). “H&M's $4.3 Billion in Unsold Inventory Piles Up as It Tries to Adapt”. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com
-Browne, M. A., Crump, P., Niven, S. J., Teuten, E., Tonkin, A., Galloway, T., & Thompson, R. (2011). Accumulation of microplastic on shorelines worldwide: Sources and sinks. “Environmental Science & Technology”, 45(21), 9175-9179.
- Chapagain, A. K., Hoekstra, A. Y., Savenije, H. H., & Gautam, R. (2006). The water footprint of cotton consumption: An assessment of the impact of worldwide consumption of cotton products on the water resources. “Ecological Economics”, 60(1), 186-203.
- Chouinard, Y., & Stanley, V. (2012). “The Responsible Company: What We've Learned from Patagonia's First 40 Years”. Patagonia Books.
- Claudio, L. (2007). Waste couture: Environmental impact of the clothing industry. “Environmental Health Perspectives”, 115(9), A448-A454.
-Eileen Fisher (2021). “Renew Program”. Retrieved from https://www.eileenfisher.com/renew
- Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017). “A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion's Future”. Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
-Fletcher, K. (2010). Slow fashion: An invitation for systems change. “Fashion Practice”, 2(2), 259-265.
Greenpeace. (2011). “Dirty Laundry: Unraveling the corporate connections to toxic water pollution in China”. Retrieved from https://www.greenpeace.org
Kant, R. 2012. Textile dyeing industry: An environmental hazard. Natural Science, 4(1), 22-26.