Spotlight Article

Fast Fashion

What is “Fast fashion”?:
Nowadays, “Fast fashion” clothing brands such as Forever 21, SheIn and Urban Outfitters[1] are very popular - and also incredibly harmful towards the environment. If you don’t know what they are, “fast fashion” brands are companies that sell cheap clothes in order to quickly keep up with or create fashion trends[2]. These stores produce clothes at a rapid rate and by design, these items of clothing are made to be replaced quickly. In fact, the quality of these items can be so cheap that lots of donated clothes ends up falling apart before arriving at consignment stores. According to a 2017 Forbes article, only about 10% of donated clothes actually got resold, while the rest ends up in landfills[3].

The harm behind the production of fast fashion:
It’s wasteful. Like mentioned before, a lot of clothes end up in landfills and a study found that in the US alone, 13 trillion tons of clothes get sent to landfills every year. These clothes stay there for around 200 years, while leaving behind chemicals dyes which contaminate the soil and groundwater around it[4]. On top of this, “fast fashion” is bad for the environment because of the CO2 emissions caused by the production of clothes. Statistics show that by 2030, CO2 emissions from “fast fashion” brands are predicted to increase by 60%, to 2.8 billion tons.[5] Furthermore, textile dyeing is considered one of the largest causes of pollution of clean water in the world[6]. On top of this, the materials in which many of these brands use to produce garments of clothing are also bad for the environment. For example, when clothes made out of polyester, which is a commonly used material for “fast fashion” companies, are washed, tiny fragments of microfibres are shed, which add to the plastic in the ocean. This is because these microfibres are so small that they can pass through sewages into waterways and they also are not biodegradable[7]. Another example could be cotton. Toxic chemicals are used when growing cotton, which uses large amounts of water and pesticides in order to avoid crop failure. These chemicals also cause defects in the farmers growing the cotton and their children[8].

What you can do: Invest in some higher quality clothes because in the long run, you’re saving more money.
More sustainable clothing brands you could buy from include: Levi’s, H&M Conscious (their environmentally friendlier collection), Patagonia, Athleta, Alternative Apparel, People Tree, Pact, and more[9]. Although it can be difficult to stop shopping at your favorite stores, consider at least reducing how much you buy from these “fast fashion” brands - it’ll be much better for the environment, for your soul, and for your carbon footprint.

By Sarah Rubio