What is Fast Fashion and How Bad Is It?
Fast fashion is prevalent in every retail establishment, in the feeds of influencers on social media encouraging excessive consumption, and in the constant appearance of advertisements online.
With constantly new trends appearing at seemingly affordable prices, the temptation to buy the latest goods can be overwhelming. But what impact is this having on our carbon footprint?
The fashion industry is estimated to be the world’s third-biggest manufacturing industry, after the automotive and technology industries, accounting for 10% of global pollution, ranking higher than emissions from air travel! However, when factoring in the entire lifecycle of a garment, a massive 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon emissions are released by the fashion industry every year. The industry also consumes large amounts of water, and textile workers are paid low wages in return for their work.
What Is Fast Fashion?
Fast fashion is defined as cheap, trendy clothing that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity culture and turns them into garments at breakneck speed to meet consumer demand. Good On You explains that the concept of fast fashion is to get the latest styles on the market, as fast as possible. This process allows shoppers to purchase clothes while they are at the height of their popularity, before discarding them after a few wears. Finally, Good On You says that fast fashion plays into the idea that outfit repeating is a fashion faux pas and that if you want to stay relevant, you have to sport the latest looks as they happen.
A report published in 2022 states that a sufficient wardrobe includes 74 garments and 20 outfits, with annual purchases of fresh garments limited to five. Though, many of us exceed this by purchasing upwards of 53 new items of clothing per year — four times as much as in the year 2000. As fashion trends have changed, so have our perceptions and how often we buy it, which retailers have taken advantage of. Typically with four seasons a year, brands will release a new line each season; however, some are releasing more than 20 a year. As a result, clothing utilisation decreased by 36% between 2003 and 2018, with a State of Fashion report (2019) finding that one in three young women, the biggest segment of consumers, consider garments worn once or twice to be old. Furthermore, the same report found that one in seven consider it a fashion faux-pas to be photographed in an outfit twice.
Through the use of cheap materials in clothing, which shorten their lifespan and make them harder to repair, this change in values has worsened. The estimated annual spending of UK consumers on clothing and footwear is expected to continue growing in the coming years, with 63.7 billion British pounds recorded in 2023. Some estimates suggest that fashion accounts for between 2% and 8% of global carbon emissions, as well as contributing to waste and environmental degradation. In the UK, approximately 300,000 tonnes of used clothes are burned or buried in landfill each year.
In this blog post, we’ll explore why sustainable fashion matters and how it can help reduce these negative impacts while still allowing us to express ourselves through our wardrobe choices.
The Negative Environmental Impact Of Fast Fashion
Overproduction And Waste
Over production is one of the most significant issues regarding fast fashion, as it creates a lot of waste. Fast fashion retailers opt for quantity over quality, resulting in substandard textiles designed to become quickly outdated as trends change.
This rapid business model creates a “disposable” mentality among consumers, which reinforces the need to buy. Fast fashion garments are cheap, reinforcing that it is okay to dispose of a dress which only cost £5 or a £1 bikini. Although a few pounds may not seem significant, it is estimated that the average Brit spends £980.50 annually on new clothing. Nationally, as a country, this adds up to £140 million worth of textiles going to landfill.
Overproduction not only results in billions of metric tons worth of textile waste but also depletes valuable natural resources like water and energy needed for production.
Water Usage And Pollution
Due to the high turn over, the fast fashion industry consumes astonishing amounts of water. A report published by The United Nations cited data saying 93 billion cubic metres of water, enough to meet the needs of five million people, is used by the fashion industry annually. In the same report it was estimated 7,500 litres of water is used to make a single pair of jeans, equivalent to the amount of water the average person drinks over a period of seven years; this is the same amount of water the average person, like me, will drink over the next 7 years, and I drink a lot of water. This excessive use contributes significantly to the depletion of our precious freshwater resources.
However, water is not the only problem, countless harmful dyes are used when producing clothes, often counting harmful substances such as heavy metals and nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs). If these are discharged into untreated water, they wreak havoc on our ecosystems, rivers, and oceans.
Labour Exploitation
One may assume that garment workers are to be paid well for their hard work? However, this is not the case, industry relies on cheap labour in countries that have lower standards of work and wages. This helps the industry keep their prices artificially low. Fast fashion is typically made in China, India, Turkey, and Bangladesh. However, not all fashion made in these countries is bad, as brands such as Rapanui made their tops in India.
Supporting sustainable fashion brands, helps to reduce environmental impacts and contributes to a better wage that rewards employees for their time and effort.
Land Use
As demand for textiles grows, so do the resources needed to produce it. Cotton is one such example; Euro News reported that the western Bahia state of the Cerrado is particularly scarred by industrial-scale farming. It is estimated that agribusinesses (enterprises involved in producing food and cultivated products for consumer use) extract nearly two billion litres of water a day, sucking riverbeds and streams dry. Furthermore, Euro News reported that by trawling through thousands of shipment records, the NGO discovered that H&M and Zara’s suppliers source cotton grown in this state by two of Brazil’s biggest producers.
Between 2014 and 2023 at least 816,000 tonnes of cotton were exported from Bahia to foreign markets, according to Shipment records seen by Earthsight, reported by Euro News. The articles continue by saying eight Asian clothing manufacturers took this raw cotton while supplying H&M and Inditex (Zara’s owner).
Recently, fast fashion brands have signed up to a supply chain certification system called Better Cotton (BC). However, all the cotton Earthsight linked to environmental degradation and human rights abuses in Bahia carried the BC label.
What Can We Do?
Buy less
According to research, only 20% of clothes owned are worn regularly, meaning we are spending money without getting value in return. One reason for this is fast fashion, which makes us feel needy to stay 'trendy' and therefore we buy more clothes from them. Buying items we like and will use longer term will justify the cost, saving us money. We should wear what we like, and not be subject to external power that tries to persuade us we need to dress in a certain manner.
Check the size
More than a fifth of all clothes bought online are sent back. According to the British Fashion Council, the most common reason for returns was incorrect sizing or fit, in 93%. Similarly, Time Magazine reports customers returning an estimated 40% of what they buy online. One reason is fashion retailers' attention to numbers, which news outlets such as The Guardian have discussed, as some retailers vary sizes, meaning a size 14 from one retailer will not fit you in a different one. One way is to combat this would be trying clothes in person.
Buy second hand
Second hand clothes can be accessed on the highstreet through charity (thrift) stores and online. While we may need to hunt around in a charity shop for clothes we like, purchasing from them supports people and keeps textiles from going to waste. Online sites will allow greater filtering for the style of clothes you like, and filters will make buying clothes for your size easier.
Think Before Buying
Before buying clothes or any item, I like to bookmark it and wait. During this time, I will see if I need the item, do some research on the fit, style and care instructions if applicable and see if I genuinely need the product. By removing the time pressure of needing to buy imminently, I feel I can make a more justified decision and perhaps find an even better price while I am at it.
Buy From Ethical Retailers
Sustainable fashion brands employ eco-friendly materials, advocate ethical labour practices, and mitigate waste and pollution. Sustainable fashion can drive change through consumer demand, but it can also innovate new production methods and techniques. Companies like Rapanui recycle the water and cotton scraps, reducing waste across the whole product line.
30 Wears Challenge
When buying an item of clothing, commit to wearing the item at-least 30 separate times, rather than the average 14 wears before disposal in 2019 as outlined by Glamour Magazine.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is clear that the fast fashion industry has a significant environmental and social impact. The excessive production of low-quality clothing results in waste and pollution, while labour exploitation practices harm garment workers' lives.
Sustainable fashion, however, offers an alternative approach that reduces the environmental footprint by adopting more ethical production methods and promoting conscious consumerism.
Consider buying your next garment second hand, going to a rental or swap event or buying less and better quality, helping your clothes to last a long time.
Let's say goodbye to fast fashion and hello to sustainable fashion!
