BRIDAL MAGAZINE

Fast Fashion, it’s cheap and widely available, has changed the way people buy and dispose of clothing, and by selling large quantities of clothing, Fast Fashion has become very successful for many companies around the world. The word “fast” describes how quickly retailers can move designs from the catwalk to stores, keeping pace with constant demand for more and different styles.

And although fast fashion may seem like a fashionista’s dream come true, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and I’m here today to hopefully change your thoughts before buying that trendy new t-shirt that you see on Shien or Romwe.

Over the past year, the infamous fast fashion brand SHEIN has surpassed other major fast fashion brands, such as H&M and Zara. SHEIN is known for its insanely low prices and variety of clothing options.

Although that sounds like an awesome thing, the issue is to do with the low labour wages in China and many other countries, as well as the extremely unsustainable measures to produce and create these items. SHEIN is just one of the many fast fashion brands that has gained popularity. It seems as though everyone acknowledges how unsustainable these brands are, yet no one seems to stop buying from them.

The idea is to get the latest trends on the marketplace as fast as possible so consumers can keep up with the height of popularity of the item. Sadly, after the trend is finished, those clothes get disregarded.

Now, with online shopping, companies like Zara, TopShop and H&M have dominated fast fashion, making it even easier to order an article of clothing online that arrives on your doorstep a week later.

There are many issues with the idea of fast fashion – the main issues revolving around environmental destruction, labour conditions and exploitations. There are 92 million tons of textile waste created each

year worldwide. By 2030, it is expected that we will discard more than

than 134 million tons of textiles per year. In 2018, 17 million tons of textile waste ended up in landfills, which can take up to 200 years to decompose. To this day, 84% of clothing ends up in landfills or incinerators. The fashion industry is also the second biggest consumer of water, producing 20% of wastewater worldwide. The industry is also generating more greenhouse gas emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Cheap textiles also increase fast fashion’s impact. Polyester, which is derived from fossil fuels, is one of the most popular fabrics. The fabric contributes to global warming, and can shed microfibres that add to the increasing levels of plastic in our oceans when washed. Even fabrics that are advertised as “natural,” such as cotton, silk or wool, can be a problem at the scale of fast fashion demands. Conventional cotton requires enormous quantities of water and pesticides in developing countries, which results in drought risks and creates extreme stress on water holds and storage units and competition for resources between companies and local communities.

The fashion industry consumes one whole tenth of all of the water, and that’s just to run factories and clean products. To put this into perspective, it takes 10,000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of cotton or on average 3,000 litres of water for one cotton shirt that we have lots of. But that isn’t the worst! Textile dyeing requires toxic chemicals that will mostly and if not always end up in our oceans. And approximately 20% of the wastewater worldwide is attributed to this process, which will build up over time. And due to the large number of factories many companies will move and create more overseas, they may be in countries without strict environmental regulations, resulting in untreated water entering the oceans. Regrettably, the wastewater created is extremely toxic and in many cases, cannot be treated to become safe again and this can be accounted for the fact that the world is currently struggling to produce fresh and clean water for us to consume.

FAST FASHION

Synthetic materials are the primary culprits that cause plastic microfibers to enter our oceans. To be exact, approximately 35% of all microplastics are from these synthetic materials. To further lower the price, producers turn to materials that may be of low quality. For example, many of the fibres are made of polyester, consisting of plastic and tend to release far more carbon emissions than cotton. Furthermore, plastic is slow to degrade in the ocean until a long time has passed. When plastic finally breaks down, it creates a toxic substance with a harmful impact on the marine ecosystems. As these plastic microfibers cannot be removed, they end up in the human food chain through aquatic life, causing many negative health effects. There are a variety of ways they can enter our ocean - most commonly from our usage of the washing machine. Though it is evident that the washing machine has been an essential appliance in our households, it’s important to wash full-loads when possible to minimise excess consumption of water. Due to how cheap and affordable clothing is nowadays and how new trends convince consumers to seek out more, the value of clothes may be a lot more discrete in the eyes of customers. Reports show that around 62 million metric tons of clothes, and much more were consumed globally in 2019. Over time, the amount that the world has consumed has skyrocketed in recent decades. Although it may be very helpful and beneficial to our economy, more items and clothes tend to end up at the landfills because the lower quality clothes are worn out only after just a few washes and this means that demands for more new clothes will rise. Amongst a variety of issues present, the two main concerns involve piles of clothing in landfills and burning clothing. Whether it is simply growing out of the clothes or that the clothes are no longer in style, a significant proportion of the population decides to throw away their clothes instead of donating them to charities such as Cancer Research, the Red Cross and many more. A large amount of materials are being wasted as they cannot be used any more for one certain type of production. Around 60% of all discarded clothing ends up in landfill and then the landfills start to pile up, then the trash is moved to an area to be burnt. This process poses multiple public health and environmental dangers and concerns to the people who live in nearby communities as toxic substances or large amounts of poisonous gases are released as a result of burning landfill and these textiles. Despite new technology creating filters to capture the pollutants, they remain present and often are turned into a dangerous substance, which later returns back to the landfills and pollutes our air.