What is Fast Fashion?
"An approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasize making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers"
As a consumer driven industry, fast fashion emerged when the demand of fashion changed course. The average consumer now craves new styles faster and for a cheaper price than they did 20 years ago. Compared to 2000, consumers are buying 60% more garments, but kept the clothing for half as long.
To keep up with demand, fast fashion companies are releasing more and more collections and designs each year. While high-end brands may release fewer than 5 collections a year, Zara is producing 24 and H&M is producing 12-16 collections each year.
As a result of consumers are buying more and keeping their clothing for shorter periods of time, the value of clothing thrown out prematurely is about $400 billion each year.
Fast Fashion brands
A Dying Planet
Fast Fashion's Impact on the Environment
Fashion as a Contributor to Climate Change
Water:
The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water. In order to make one cotton t-shirt, about 700 gallons of water are needed. To put this into perspective, that is how much water the average person drinks over 2.5 years.
Dyeing textiles is the second-largest polluter of water as leftover water used to dye textiles is often dumped into nearby water sources.
Landfills:
Consumers are throwing away more clothing than ever. These discarded items of clothing go to a landfill, will not decompose, and may eventually be burned.
85% of all textiles discarded will go into a landfill each year.
Ocean Pollution:
Polyester is one of the most used man-made synthetic fabrics. It is very cheap to produce, so it is found in many clothing items in fast fashion.
Putting these textiles into washing machines releases 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean annually.
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This is the equivalent to 50 billion plastic water bottles.
Of all the microplastics that pollute the ocean, 35% comes from simply washing clothing made with polyester.
Greenhouse Gases:
The fashion industry as a whole emits 10% of the world's carbon emissions. As the demand for fast fashion grows, it is sensible to assume that fast fashion is the driving force behind the majority of the pollution from the fashion industry.
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If the fast fashion consumption trend continues, the fashion industry will account for 26% of the world's carbon emissions by 2050.
As some discarded clothing is burned, this is one releaser of greenhouse gases.
At the beginning of the fast fashion process, polyester is made from petroleum.
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Textile factories release volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, and acid gases
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Each of these pollutes the atmosphere and can cause or worsen respiratory disease
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As a result of the pollution emitted from these factories, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) views them as hazardous waste generators.
Making denim is also strenuous on the environment.
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One pair of jeans is the equivalent of driving a car for 80 miles.