The Fashion Crisis

 

Fast fashion is no doubt an issue we need to deal with. Many have heard of it but don’t actually know-how harmful it is to the environment. Tonnes of water is used up to make just one piece of clothing when that water could be used to help those who actually need it.

 

First of all, what is Fast Fashion? It is known as the way of creating and marketing clothes linked to the latest fashion trends and making it affordable for costumers to buy. It may sound good to the buyer but in reality, it isn’t. To make those clothes cheap and quickly made it involves retailers barely investing in the quality in of the workers’ conditions and using a lot of water.

 

Fast fashion is the second-largest contributor to the world’s pollution, that tells us just how bad its effects are on the environment. It creates a lot of landfill waste and wastewater every year. About 20% of wastewater comes from the fast fashion industry which contaminates rivers, seas, oceans and harming the innocent sea creatures. It uses up a lot of water and wastes that water as well. Those jeans you have, take about 2,000 gallons of freshwater to make meaning billions of gallons are used to make clothes every year.

 

Making cotton also have its effects on the environment. Cotton uses up most of the water gathered for fast fashion. Using all that water leaves poor communities vulnerable as well as different ecosystems. It also uses pesticides and fertilisers which contaminate soil and water as well as harming the people working on cotton fields due to the chemicals.

 

About 40 million people work in producing these clothes and the conditions they work under are horrendous. They work in dangerous conditions, working with harsh chemicals and unsafe machines to make these clothes. Their pay is also very low given that they work long hours. Pay has increased over the years in manufacturing countries but some countries still struggle to pay the workers the money they need.

 

Overall, statistics show that fast fashion will increase over the next years but that can be stopped if you look to alternatives. Current brands that are fast fashion are Zara, H&M, Primark, Forever 21 and many more. To help stop this crisis you can try to shop less from these brands that are involved in fast fashion and try second-hand clothing. Doing this means that you are buying less new clothes and saving money as they are sold cheaper than the original price. It also means that it saves water and reduces carbon emissions.

By Femi Adesegun