Fast Fashion and Pollution
The textile or fashion industry is the second most polluting in the world, following only the oil industry, both in terms of environmental impact and water consumption.
The causes of this problem can be attributed to fast fashion, i.e. the ultra-fast production of clothing, in which quality is not taken into consideration to lower costs, and which focuses only on quantity.
Fast Fashion: an unsustainable model
In the past, fashion offered two collections a year, the spring-summer one and the autumn-winter one. With fast fashion, on the other hand, we have come to produce up to 52 packs a year!
In this way the buyer is pushed to incessantly desire new clothes, to replace those which, purchased at low cost, also have a much shorter duration. One could say that clothing, like technology, is programmed to destroy itself: programmed obsolescence.
Textile waste disposal: tons of waste
And here is one of the main problems associated with the world of fast fashion: the disposal of textile waste. When a dress has been damaged (many times after a few washings in the washing machine) and therefore can no longer be worn, it is placed in special bins for separate collection of textiles. In Italy, 143,260 tons of textile waste were transferred in 2019, equal to approximately 2.42 kg per inhabitant. Of these clothes, a small part is recovered to be donated to associations and donated to less well-off people who need them, and another part ends up on the second-hand clothing market. However, most of this waste is very damaged and therefore unsuitable to be put back into circulation, so it is sent to poorer areas of the world, where, after another small sorting and selection intended for recovery, it is thrown into landfills. Here they rot, contaminating the soil with many of the toxic substances they are made of, or are even burned, releasing phthalates, C02 and other toxic and seriously harmful substances into the air.
A serious problem for the ecosystem and the human being
But fast fashion is also a problem for us consumers because we don't make money buying clothes like this: we are convinced that we are doing good business and spending little, instead we buy badly and buy more and more and worse; as a result we spend money that could be invested in better clothes instead of these short-lived clothes.
Fast fashion is problematic at all stages of its supply chain
For example, huge amounts of pesticides are used especially in the production of a fiber that we all wear like cotton.
In India 5.8 million people work in the cotton growing sector and many of these become seriously ill and die from the pesticides used which cause respiratory diseases and cancer.
Fabrics and microplastics
There is also a microplastics problem: the clothes we buy in fast fashion chains are all derived from petroleum: acrylic, nylon, polyester. When we wash the fabrics made of these synthetic materials in the washing machine, plastic micro particles are released; Since our washing machines do not have a filtering system to retain these particles, these tiny pieces end up in wastewater and the sea, with the consequence of being ingested by fish and then re-entering the food chain.
The environmental impact: water pollution and CO2
Relative to water, the fast fashion industry also has a strong impact on water pollution. In fact many of the dyes used to produce our clothes are highly toxic and polluting. When they are released into the environment without adequate filtration, they pollute watercourses and also make the land used by local people to grow crops completely sterile, thus making them uncultivable.
Last but not least, the fashion industry is responsible for around 8% of CO2 emissions.
Exploitation of workers: the social impact of fashion
Finally, there is the human aspect. The now delocalized industry that deals with the production of these products does not allow compliance with standards and safety at work such as those in force in Europe, for example. For which the workers work in very bad, dangerous conditions for many hours a day among harmful chemical agents, without rights and for really poor wages.
It's incredible to think that behind all our clothes there is so much suffering.
What are the cheap alternatives to fashion?
Sustainable or responsible fashion is the fashion sector that contrasts with everything described so far, in which more attention is paid to the characteristics of fabrics such as quality and durability, and attention is paid to manufacturing and workers.
It is a different attitude compared to consumption, which pushes us more to reflect and to be aware of what we are buying.
Before rushing into a purchase, let's think and ask ourselves about the origin of the clothes, try to read the labels, rather than just considering prices and models.
We all have a very strong power: we can ask ourselves and ask questions, we can make responsible choices.
