How does fast fashion affect people?
According to the World Economic Forum, fast fashion makes shopping for clothes more affordable, but it comes at an environmental cost. So, even though people are buying less, the clothing is also lasting lass. Therefore, throwing them away more often and, of course, producing more trash.
Fast fashion also impacts many different human rights areas, especially in the global south where fast fashion companies and their suppliers can exploit cheap labour and lax environmental laws and regulations. According to non-profit Remake, 80% of apparel is made by young women between the ages of 18 and 24.
- Textile Waste. According to a study by McKinsey, since 2000, we have doubled the number of garments we're producing. ...
- Carbon Emissions. ...
- Water Use and Pollution. ...
- Public Health Hazards. ...
- Exploitative Labor Practices.
Fast fashion has had a significant impact on the environment because problems like greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution (i.e., dumping untreated dyes and chemicals into water), problems with waste management (i.e., burying or burning of large amounts of discarded clothing) have all increased as a result of the ...
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Cons of fast fashion:
- Increase in textile waste.
- Textile waste often deposited in/around low-income neighborhoods.
- Labor exploitation.
Along with massive water consumption, textile waste and toxic dyes leaching into soils and waterways, fast fashion also releases microplastics when washed, which leads to about 500,000 tons of microfibres in the ocean every year - the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles.
A byproduct from textile factories in countries that produce fast fashion items en masse is untreated toxic wastewater. What's wrong with it? This textile waste contains substances like lead, mercury and arsenic that are extremely harmful to aquatic and human life.
Fashion production makes up 10% of humanity's carbon emissions, dries up water sources, and pollutes rivers and streams. What's more, 85% of all textiles go to the dump each year (UNECE, 2018), and washing some types of clothes sends significant amount of microplastics into the ocean.
The fast fashion industry creates carbon emissions in many different ways, from factories polluting the air and waterways to gas-guzzling planes and trucks that are used for shipping the clothing and accessories to retailers around the world. And even after we've bought them, they're still posing a pollution threat.
Fast fashion has an enormous environmental footprint for both its production and disposal. Clothing production requires a considerable amount of energy and resources, while it depends on toxic fabric dyes and other chemicals that contaminate fresh water. Fashion produces a tenth of the world's carbon emissions.
Does Shein use child labor?
Despite users flooding the comment sections of videos of Shein hauls about these rumors, the company claims it “never engages in child or forced labor.” In addition, its website states: “We regularly evaluate and address human trafficking and slavery risks in product supply chains through in-house inspectors who are ...
Garments given up early and thrown out instead of recycled combine to produce massive wastage, estimated at around $500 billion every year.
Because the environmental and social impacts of fast fashion disproportionately impacts BIPOC communities, it is a pressing global environmental and social justice issue. It also reflects the climate crisis at large, which disproportionately impacts Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.
These small businesses are far more easily affected by more factors, such as change in trends and climate change. Additionally, the fast fashion companies stealing designs from small businesses further hinders the original designers of those products from profiting at all from their own work.
