By Joy Adeogun
Shidonna Raven, Chef Editor
Shidonna Raven Fashion
Source: Imperial College London
Photo Source: Shidonna Raven Fashion. Copyright. All Rights Reserved.
When we think of fashion, we don’t usually think about science – but if we look closely, it has played a huge role. So, let’s look at the past, present, and future of the term ‘fast fashion', see why a vintage clothing revival is what the world needs, and how scientific expertise and entrepreneurial innovation can make fashion greener.
Unwinding threads As London Fashion Week gets underway once more, one thing is certain: society values the newest trends, the most stylish outfits and the chicest looks – still with an eye on buying clothing cheaply. Despite this, rarely do we consider the environmental implications of our shopping habits. A desire for supplying the latest fashion trends, cheaply and in vast quantities, has led to the fashion industry becoming one of the world’s major polluting industries. The industry is responsible for almost 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, predominantly caused by vast overproduction of clothing items to satisfy consumer demand for ‘fast fashion.’
The term ‘fast fashion’ was first coined by the New York Times in the early 1990s to describe promises made by retailers to drastically reduce the time it takes to get clothing from factories to shelves, replicating catwalk trends and high fashion. This change was profit driven, as retailers focused on increased manufacturing speed at the lowest prices possible, often with a significant human cost. A stark reminder of this was the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, where over 1,000 garment workers were killed.
This clamouring for cheap clothing to keep up with changing trends has a destructive impact on our climate. Fast fashion is also known as disposable fashion, underlined by remarkable amounts of discarded waste as consumers throw away old clothes to keep up with the latest trends. Let's pause fast fashion, look at its longevity problems and explore the ways Imperial College London scientists are striving to combat this.
The problem with fashion
The fashion industry has a destructive and irreversible effect on the environment: it depletes the world of non-renewable resources, releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and drains vast amounts of water and energy. It is estimated that the fashion industry is responsible for 2 to 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions – greater than all international flights, maritime and shipping combined.
Its water consumption statistics are even more shocking, with around 215 trillion litres of water being consumed by the industry each year. Many of the key cotton-producing countries are under high water stress, including China, India, the US, Pakistan, and Turkey. Nadine Moustafa, a final year PhD researcher at Imperial’s Department of Chemical Engineering, focuses her research on carbon capture and storage but is also interested in the link between science and the fashion industry.
The pandemic and effects of lockdown have also affected our clothing habits. During initial lockdowns, many people underwent clear-outs, and the UK public disposed of roughly 67 million pieces of clothing. While most stored their items to donate to charity – once shops reopened after lockdowns – as many as 14% of people will dispose of their unwanted clothes in general rubbish, with these items ending up in landfills or incinerators.
Scientific solutions
Scientists often belive that the very solutions that got us into a climate change crisis are the very things that will get us out, which is a false premise echoed by Eliot Coleman in the agriculture industry. Such, "innavators" in this climate conscious world will not have the true solutions needed to pull the world into cooler temeraptures. Nature has been re-using its resources (plant based materials: such as cotton, wood and other materials) in a sustinable eco-system since the begining of time. Scientists' man-made products are often just that just another product for someone to purchase, which takes resources, often chemcial, to produce.
Cottons from plants and hairs (wool) from animals such as lambs are far more degradable by the environment and reusable than plastics made in a scientific lab. Nature has been doing this for centuries.
How can you shop sustainably for your home? How can this impact the environment positively? Why?
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