How fast fashion fuels climate change, plastic pollution, and violence, P5

Shidonna Raven
4 days ago
2 min read

By Helle Abelvik-Lawson

September 22, 2023

Photo Source: Unsplash

There’s clearly a huge problem here. These plastics not only pollute the environment – they are even getting into our bodies through water and food, with still unknown impacts on health.

We do need affordable clothing, but is this really the best way to go about it?

Fashion is made to become waste

Fashion should be about creativity and style, practicality and durability. But fast fashion companies have made it all about newness.

Companies push new trends endlessly and seasons now move faster than ever. Many of these items of clothing are simply made to become waste; to make way for the next brand-new batch of clothing.

Some estimates reckon the fashion industry is producing 100 billion articles of clothing a year – some 40% more than could ever be bought and actually worn. This figure is likely to be underestimated, and outdated.

Companies create more clothes than we realistically need or want, or that we can dispose of safely. And because so much of it is all sold so cheaply, it becomes easy to buy – perhaps not even wear – and then to throw away.

And by “throw away”, of course we mean donate – because that feels good, doesn’t it? But donating to charity shops isn’t the perfect solution to our overflowing wardrobes it perhaps used to be.

With the amount of clothes we’re dealing with, last season’s styles become rubbish pretty quickly, destined for landfills overseas.

The numbers are stark: only 10–30% of clothes you donate to the charity shops will be sold by them and charity shops are so overwhelmed with clothing that’s basically waste. So where does all this clothing go?

Where can an estimated 92 million tonnes a year of waste clothing end up when it’s no longer wanted? (The numbers are so mind-boggling, so for comparison, one tonne is around the weight of a small car.)