4/28/2024 0 Comments Aparell infographic exampleWe can also make more sustainable decisions, by imagining fashion as a sharing economy. Garments produced today are not getting enough (sometimes any!) use, and end up being either burnt or disposed of in a landfill - at the very alarming rate of one garbage truck per second ( source). The number of times an item is worn decreases before being discarded, some after only 7-10 wear ( source). Today the average person buys 60 percent more items of clothing and keeps them for about half as long as 15 years ago. To begin with - one third of the garments produced today are not even sold ( source), and the remaining two thirds are not well used. The worst part? It's actually not necessary - we simply don’t need that much clothing. The statistics behind the negative environmental and social impacts are sobering. ![]() The consumption of garments and textiles is equally unsustainable. ![]() (A simple regulatory change making the application of the same standards mandatory at all stages of production and across borders would be an easy way to make a big change, and is the premise behind the # fairbylaw campaign). Conditions in the textiles industry are regulated inside the European Union, providing for minimum wage and workplace safety standards, but by 'outsourcing' garment production outside of the European Union, European fashion brands can operate overseas with different standards and regulations - from a social and ethical perspective, unsustainable. The downwards price pressure and turnaround speed of production can lead to poor working conditions such as long hours and poor pay, or even modern slavery and child labour for garment workers ( source). The pressure on the earth’s resources from the production of textiles is makes it environmentally unsustainable. The fashion industry is using and polluting precious and limited resources such as crude oil, freshwater and arable land to produce textiles for garments. Let's first look at the environmental cost: in its current state, textiles production accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined (1.2 billion tonnes annually, of a total 33 billion tonnes per year ( source) ) and accounts for 20 percent of global water pollution ( source). ![]() ![]() Sustainability is broadly defined as the ability to continue at a particular level for a period of time, and more specifically with respect to the environment as “the idea that goods and services should be produced in ways that do not use resources that cannot be replaced and that do not damage the environment.” When I refer to sustainability fashion - I take the definition even farther to take the social impact into consideration as well. By 2014 - to more than 1 billion items of clothing - this in Fast Fashion ( source). Alone its speed is unsustainable: between 20, the entire textiles production doubled. There is a movement of researchers, scientists and activists and growing body of literature that demonstrates that the current fashion and textiles industry is developing in a way that is both environmentally and ethically unsustainable. Fashion as an industry is huge - currently the clothing industry is valued at USD 1.3 trillion, and employs more than 300 million people along the value chain ( source).
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