Fast Fashion: Why Your Shopping Sprees Must End
This article is written for the folks who hit the downtown streets a few times a year to spruce up their wardrobe. I get it. Shopping has its thrills: you’re creating the next look, the next you. You’re hunting for the next deal. Maybe it’s your distress from a long day of work. Maybe it’s how you and the besties celebrate big occasions.
But I need to have a heart to heart with you…
These shopping trips have serious consequences.
The clothes you buy this weekend likely will eventually end up in a landfill (maybe even in the next five years). And those materials could take up to 200 years to break down.
So let’s talk about today’s fashion industry. Because it has changed big time. In 2014 the Atlantic reported that us Americans buy 5 times as much clothes as they did in 1980. It’s no wonder the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions. This is largely due to the accessibility of Fast Fashion.
What is Fast Fashion?
Fast Fashion refers to the movement that cranks clothes from the runway to Target in an instant. The swift production lines move clothes from factory to retail rack in a finger snap. It allows everyone to stay on trend affordably. The catch? The lower costs happen at the expense of the environment.
The cheap material these brands use unravel almost as quickly as the trends themselves.
Fast fashion operates off the latest trends and bulk production. Producers all across the world imitate one another, leading to oversaturated markets. Oftentimes, the cheap material these brands use unravel almost as quickly as the trends themselves. Almost all of us have invested in fast fashion. I know I have.
That chevron scarf I bought in 2015 for $10.99? I wore it for one fall and then shoved it in the back of my wardrobe for three years. The color teal and bold geometric prints were no longer “in” at my school. And it’s likely not all of them were bought off the racks either. Depending on the store’s policy these items are donated, trashed, or repurposed (aka shredded).
Shopping choices we make on the weekends have an impact on something way bigger than the budget. What you buy this weekend will leave an impact on the world for generations. And that’s not because your granddaughter will someday end up wearing today’s fashion statement.
Where does the clothing go?
Sadly, not even 20% of America’s discarded clothing ends up in the thrift stores. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2017 Americans dumped 11.15 million tons of textiles to landfills. To clarify: that’s 11.15 million tons dumped just that year. So there’s a simple solution, right? Donate used clothes to second hand shops. Wrong.
Secondhand stores are deeply overwhelmed with merchandise. Each year non-profits such as Goodwill and Salvation Army have to spend millions of dollars to throw away clothes that were donated to them.
A Simple Solution
The problem is our rate of consumption. We need to slow down.
But fast fashion is only getting faster. We’ve entered into an era of the fastest fashion: a culture that demands that the new dress we ordered arrives tomorrow. In the age of companies like Amazon, people don’t have to drive to buy new clothes. They just show up at the door…
Now I’m not proposing we all boycott Amazon. Two day shipping has changed my life too. I’m just proposing we buy less… (and maybe someday we can muster up the courage to say no to two day shipping).
People often talk about how the meat industry has changed over the past past century. A few generations ago it wasn’t novel to own a chicken in your backyard. People knew the farm where their our meat came from, and it wasn’t Tyson’s. On their walk to church, they’d pass the pig farm that supplied their Christmas ham. They would have attended school with the farmer’s son. Now there are kids growing up in cities and suburbs that might not see a cow before they turn ten.
We don’t know our food. Nor do we know other industries. We don’t know fashion.
A mental gap grows when we’re not driving to stores, witnessing the warehouse, or watching the landfills grow. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. This ignorance allows us to turn a blind eye to the burden we’re putting on our earth.
It’s time to face the facts:
The average person throws out 70 pounds of textiles per year.
The amount of waste thrown into landfills per year nearly doubled in less than 20 years.
In 2017 8% of landfill waste came from textiles.
This problem will be inherited by our grandchildren.
If we show the market, we’re done investing with fast fashion: the production system will change. So while we’re still kicking, let’s clean up our act as much as possible. Let’s force industry’s hand. Let’s curb our shopping habits and invest it in a better future for the kids. Let’s buy less.
