Priceless Fast Fashion

Many people are aware that most things nowadays are manufactured overseas; however, there isn’t much thought about what it takes to produce the simple things we buy and use every day. A basic shirt purchased at a low price has priceless consequences. The fast fashion industry is growing rapidly and offers a continuous cycle of cheap garments designed for the dump. In the film Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard explains the linear process from extraction to disposal that applies to the fast fashion industry that affects the environment, production workers, and the amount of consumer waste.

The environmental impact of making textiles and clothing is damaging to natural resources and is unsustainable. Buying a cotton shirt seems like a good choice to most consumers because its material is produced from a plant. What people don’t know is that cotton is the world’s dirtiest crop due to the heavy use of insecticides and pesticides. “Cotton covers 2.5% of the world's cultivated land yet uses 16% of the world's insecticides, more than any other single major crop” (Organic Trade Association, 2011). In addition to the ground pollution from crop production, coal burning factories and textile mills leach chemicals into the air and water. As Leonard (2007) discusses, the factories being built overseas not only pollute their water, land, and air but pollution also ends up coming back in water and wind currents. Water is contaminated with countless toxic chemicals and used in excess to grow and produce textiles for clothing production. A great example of this abundant waste is that one t-shirt requires 2,700 litres of water to produce. Fast fashion is damaging the environment on a global scale and that is just the beginning of this flawed system.

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...oices and “vote with my dollar” to make a small change. There are many ways to recycle, upcycle, and renew old clothing that could make a small difference such as donating, buying second-hand or vintage clothing, altering and updating, and using old materials for rags. As Beth Greer (2013) outlines in her article “The Truth About the Clothes We Wear,” we should look for “organic cotton and fair trade products, avoid polyester and nylon because they are made from petroleum, and avoid any garment that is advertised as being anti-shrink, antibacterial, antimicrobial, antistatic, anti-odor, anti-flame, anti-wrinkle, or anti-stain. These all contain chemicals not tested for safety on humans.” Unfortunately it will still take decades before there is enough change to start reducing the amount of damage created by this industry but I hope to see this change in my lifetime.