I noticed that I haven’t done an environmental post for a while 😬 so here I am with a post on fast fashion, something I am very conscious of and try my hardest to reduce.
Fast fashion is designed to make you buy more clothes
The types of stores that contribute to fast fashion, know what they are doing and are doing it on purpose. They know that the trends will change quickly and therefore will be getting more and more money in.
Additionally, the clothes are designed with cheap materials that will fall apart quickly so that the public will keep going back to buy more. But these cheap materials come at a massive cost to our planet.
85% of plastic pollution is due to microfibers from synthetic clothing
(Dr Mark Brown 2011 study)
This is such a shocking statistic!
When clothes made of synthetic fibres get thrown out, they go to landfill and plastic doesn’t decompose….instead it breaks down into smaller pieces called microplastics. These plastics are extremely harmful as they can enter our bodies – there are even nano plastics which are smaller and can enter more easily.
“Farmers in China, that live close to garment factories, ‘joke’ to be able to tell what colours will be ‘in’ next season by looking at the colour of the rivers”
I read this and was heartbroken.
This just shows how much the environment is interconnected.
The dyes from the fashion factories are leaking into rivers which will kill off fish living there and lead to the locals having contaminated water. It’s extremely damaging in more ways than one.
It takes on average 7000 litres of water to produce one pair of jeans
You drink this amount of water over a time period of 5-6 years! That is a massive amount of water for just one pair of jeans.
You may be wondering how it can take this much water…
The massive amount of water consumption is from:
- Production of cotton/cotton irrigation
- Bleaching
- Dyeing
- Printing
A lot of countries in Western Europe, import cotton from poorer countries that will sell it cheap so that they can get sales. There’s an estimated 20% loss of water from the Aral Sea due to EU consumption along with the fashion sector taking 7% of groundwater and drinking water depletion globally.
Some textile workers don’t earn enough in a month to pay for one of the garments they produce
Producing the amount of fast fashion that customers buy is very unethical and highly demanding. Brands will choose factories that charge the least so they can earn more money which leads to a downfall in their health & safety so the workers are working in poor conditions plus low wages.
This needs to stop.
I hope by reading this post you have learnt a little bit more about fast fashion and how dire the situation is.
Related post: 9 ways to reduce your fast fashion consumptions
Best wishes, Cx
Great post! I’ve been trying to learn more recently about fast fashion so your post was very helpful. I definitely want to keep learning more so I can know how to change some of my buying habits. Thanks!
Wow these were such interesting facts thank you for sharing!!
Thanks and np xx
I am trying more and more to be as environmentally friendly as I can so eye-opening posts like these are fantastic!!
Same, thank you xx
“It takes on average 7000 litres of water to produce ONE pair of jeans” I remember hearing this fact not long ago and I was SHOCKED. 7000 litres of water to produce one pair of jeans is so crazy to me.
Its crazy how much water we use to produce things. I saw a fact recently that said that to create 1 McDonalds burger it uses up TWO months of shower water. Which again is crazy!
It certainly makes you consider if clothing and food is really worth it considering what its doing to our planet.
Ikr! It’s completely absured that we as the human species think it’s ok to just damage our planet, makes me so sad 🙁 xx
Oh my goodness, these stats are harrowing! I try to minimise my clothes shopping in general, but I’m definitely going to be more militant on myself xx
Agreed! xx
Wow these were definitely shocking facts.
I know </3
GROSS!!! Thank you for sharing! Fast fashion is shameful! I can’t believe it takes that much water to make a single pair of jeans, especially when you go into a store chock full of them!!🙊💓
I agree, it’s ridiculous!
Thanks for these facts. I don’t shop with fast fashion retailers anymore since the beginning of the year, since I found out just how terrible they are.
No problem! Same, it’s my New Year’s resolution which I hope to continue forever 🙂 x