Fast fashion is the business model of rapid and cheap production of garments on a massive scale. People are constantly being encouraged to buy more clothes than they need through insane discounts and constant advertisements. In 2014, the average person owned 60% more items of clothing than the average person did in the year 2000. That's a significant increase. The clothing we buy is usually of low quality and is kept half as long as it would have been 20 years ago. The unwanted clothes end up in landfills contributing to our global waste problem.
Sweatshops make fast fashion possible. Sweatshops are factories that do not adhere to international labour laws. Though sweatshops are illegal, they are usually overlooked and the conditions are not monitored. Sweatshops provide very poor wages to people in desperate need of money, including children. Most sweatshops are crowded, dirty, and poorly lit. The workers in sweatshops are often mistreated by their employers. Verbal, physical and sexual abuse are not uncommon in these environments.
Fast fashion is detrimental to people and the planet. Unsustainable materials; chemicals used in manufacturing; pesticides used to grow crops, like cotton; shipping; energy usage and air pollution from factories, are all contributing factors, before the products even reach the store. Further harm to the planet then occurs from fashion waste.
“...between 80 and 100 billion new items of clothing are produced every year globally, while a lorry-load of used clothing is incinerated or buried in landfill every single second” - National Geographic.
Fashion waste from countries like the United States is often sent to landfills in countries like Pakistan and Ghana. The waste in these landfills not only emits greenhouse gases, but also destroys marine habitats, and contaminates drinking water, causing serious health problems in local communities.
Many people do not realize that, aside from oil, fashion is the most polluting industry on the planet. In 2018 around 2.1 billion tons of Co2 emissions came from the fashion industry alone. This contributes to climate change.
While we have a choice in the companies we buy from and should be mindful of our excessive consumerism, there is only so much individuals can do. We need to pressure companies to make sustainable and ethical choices and we need to pressure governments to ensure they do so.
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