Time to Air Our Dirty Laundry: The Fashion Industry

It is time to air the dirty laundry and confront the fashion industry and our shopping choices.

Many modern practices are explicit in the way they cause pollution to our environment — disposable plastic waste and fumes from our vehicles, for example. However, when it comes to our daily clothes, these consequences are much less obvious.

The fashion industry is one of the biggest sectors of industrial production and distribution. As mentioned in my previous post, it provides significantly to our economy. For example, this sector alone has contributed to about 4.5% of India’s GDP in 2010 (Mukherjee, 2015). With an influence at such a large scale, its environmental effects cannot be ignored.

Designing, harvesting raw materials, producing cotton and dyeing and constructing textiles, are some of the processes involved in a complicated and diverse web of functions of the industry. As global fashion consumption continues to increase, these processes will also continue to intensify and amplify their levels of environmental pollution (Niinimäki et al., 2020).

Most notably, fast fashion, which are collections with relatively short and rapid production cycles , is a major driving force behind high levels of pollution caused by the industry. It aims to release new styles frequently and are known to be cheaper and accessible to the general public. With increased purchasability and choices, however, comes higher levels of waste and lower quality practices in order to cut cost (Joy et al., 2012).

Fast fashion leaves a gigantic pollution footprint, where each step of its life cycle induces potential environmental hazards. If this description alone does not shake you, perhaps I can let the statistics do the talking:

• Fashion production contributes to 10% of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions

• 85% of textiles are dumped each year, releasing large levels of microplastics into the ocean

• Washing processes releases an equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles into the ocean each year

• The fashion industry alone is responsible for 20% of industrial water pollution worldwide

Well, you get the idea…… These are but some ways we are continuously adding harmful pollutants into our water, land and atmosphere.

As The Guardian adequately lays out, the fashion industry NEEDS to revolutionize their methods and ethics in order to keep up and cope with their environmental impacts. This includes changing their recycling processes and pollution control technology.

While many apparels are designed in the United States and Europe, they are frequently produced in developing countries such as India and Vietnam, causing pollution problems for their local communities. However, this is not simply a problem for producers to solve, but a global problem that extends from producers to consumers.

Though the situation is grim, I believe there is hope. More and more businesses are trying to incorporate sustainable practices in producing their textiles and apparels (Turker et al., 2014). By embracing renewable energy sources and developing new ways to recycle materials, we can gradually reduce the amount of harmful substances released into our environment. Let us stay positive and continue to build awareness along the way!

COMING UP

For the next few posts, I will be covering in detail how production in the fashion industry releases pollutants to our water, land and air resources. As usual, stay tuned!

Cheers,

Hui Jie

References

Audrey, S. (n.d). What Is Fast Fashion, Anyway?. The Good Trade. Retrieved from https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/what-is-fast-fashion.

Joy, A., Sherry Jr, J. F., Venkatesh, A., Wang, J., & Chan, R. (2012). Fast fashion, sustainability, and the ethical appeal of luxury brands. Fashion theory, 16(3), 273-295.

Morgan, M. (2019, October 22). The fashion industry emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Here are the biggest ways it impacts the planet. Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/fast-fashion-environmental-impact-pollution-emissions-waste-water-2019-10.

Mukherjee, S. (2015). Environmental and social impact of fashion: Towards an eco-friendly, ethical fashion. International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(3), 22-35.

Nicola, D. (2020, April 7). Fast fashion speeding toward environmental disaster, report warns. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/apr/07/fast-fashion-speeding-toward-environmental-disaster-report-warns.

Niinimäki, K., Peters, G., Dahlbo, H., Perry, P., Rissanen, T., & Gwilt, A. (2020). The environmental price of fast fashion. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 1(4), 189-200.

Turker, D., & Altuntas, C. (2014). Sustainable supply chain management in the fast fashion industry: An analysis of corporate reports. European Management Journal, 32(5), 837-849.

Image Source

[Textile, Industry, India - A Factory Worker Pushing to the Fabric Dyeing Machine]. (2019, May 4). iStock Photo. Retrieved from https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/textile-industry-in-india-gm1147956878-309852511?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=srp_photos_top&utm_content=https%3A%2F%2Funsplash.com%2Fs%2Fphotos%2Ftextile-factory&utm_term=textile%20factory%3A%3A%3A.