Fashion fashion is one of the most harmful industries for the earth’s environment and is to blame for 10% of the world’s carbon emissions. The term fast fashion is used to describe a company or corporation who depends on making incredibly cheap and poorly or quickly made clothing items. Fast fashion lines are often very up to date with the newest trends because of their ability to produce clothes at such a high rate at an extremely low cost. This process of the fast fashion industry promotes unnecessary consumption because people are constantly given inexpensive and trendy products in order to remain up to date and relevant.
The actual production of clothes is the most environmentally harmful part of the industrial process because of the excessive water and energy use. Because of this, fast fashion is to blame for both the lack of and contamination of water throughout many Asian regions where these clothes are being produced, which then leads to negative affects on the surrounding environments. In addition to this, new non-biodegradable and manufactured materials have become increasingly popular for the fast fashion industry because they are inexpensive to produce, but require a large amount of energy to produce. These synthetic fabrics will also stay in our environment forever because of their inability to break-down or be recycled.
In order to slow the damaging effects of the fast fashion industry, many major changes need to be made within the production process. A 2020 Guardian article states, “Clothes rental, better recycling processes, pollution control technology and the innovative use of offcuts are among measures that could help.” With these changes and a larger emphasis on making long-lasting clothing with durable and recyclable materials, we could put a halt to the rise of this harmful consumer industry. Not only do companies need to make changes to their manufacturing processes, but we as consumers also need to quit supporting companies that are negatively impacting the environment around us. It is important that we try and invest our money into clothing that will last us a long time, rather than solely meeting a trend.
Davis, Nicola. “Fast Fashion Speeding toward Environmental Disaster, Report Warns.” The
Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 Apr. 2020,
www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/apr/07/fast-fashion-speeding-toward-
environmental-disaster-report-warns.
Mulhern, Owen. “Impacts of Fast Fashion on the Environment: Earth.Org - Past: Present:
Future.” Earth.Org - Past | Present | Future, earth.org/data_visualization/impacts-of-fast-
fashion-on-the-environment/.
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