Written by Mmathabo Mahlangu, Elements Writer
Fast fashion is a term used to describe the mass production of cheap disposable clothing that is manufactured at a high speed rate in order to keep up with the modern clothing trends. A study that was conducted showed an increase of 60% of garments that were bought in 2014 compared to the year 2000. Fast fashion is responsible for 10% of carbon emission in our environment, this industry is the second largest field that causes a large amount of pollution in our environment. The fashion industry pollutes rivers and streams by dumping untreated toxic waste water that contains chemicals such as lead, mercury and arsenic which comes from the production of garments into rivers. Fast fashion is used to speed up their retail purchases so that consumers are often buying new trending clothing from stores, and to ensure that clothing stores are able to sell all the merchandise at full price and reduce the quantity of clothes that retailors are buying.
The dumping of toxic chemicals in rivers and streams is extremely dangerous for communities that live near a river that water to plant crops and other everyday necessities. It is also harmful to marine wild life in oceans. The fashion industry uses large amount of fresh water for the production of clothes, approximately 200 tons of water is allocated for a ton of dyed fabric and up to 2000 litres of water that is used only to produce 1kg of cotton. When washing synthetic garments such as polyester, nylon, acrylic etc. about 700 000 micro-fibres are released in to water and in ocean. The danger here is that when the micro-fibres reach the ocean, the little fish will eat the small fibres thinking that its food then later on those small fishes will be eaten by a fish and the bigger fish will also digest the micro-fibres causing a plastic food chain. Synthetic fibres are not only released water but also in air. A study shows that one person could potentially release 300 million polyesters micro-fibres into the environment when doing laundry and more than 900 million micro-fibres released into the atmosphere just by wearing synthetic garments. Clothing has become a disposable item, on average a western family throws away 30kg of clothes per year, 15% of those clothes are either recycled or donated and the other 15% is dumped in landfills. The industry generates greenhouse gases during the production and transportation process. Synthetic fibre are made of fossil fuels this results to too much intensive energy used during production.
There are many ways in which you can help reduce the production of cheap disposable clothes. I had conducted a few interviews with some of the youth and received their insights and how they thought the issue of fast fashion could be solved. “The fashion industry should find new methods of dumping toxic chemicals that will not harm the environment.” Another good idea is, “using second-hand clothing stores and trading your old synthetic garments for something new.” It is also advisable for “the government to enforce strict policies that will stop the fashion industry from over producing non-natural fibres and limiting the amount of carbon that is emitted into the atmosphere.” It is important that “we as the youth raise awareness about how fast fashion is destroying our environment through social media, campaigns and our communities.”
Many people are not aware of what goes on during the production of clothes. And sadly the majority of clothes that we wear are made from non-natural fibres. Consumers that buy clothing should be aware of the negative effects that fast fashion has done to the environment. In this way we as consumers will be able to rise up against the production off clothes that made from non-natural fibres that harm the environment.
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- Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels