Let’s Talk Fast Fashion Waste.

Something we hear so often is about how terrible the fast fashion industry is. But what is actually so bad about it?

Globally, the fashion industry generates one rubbish truck full of textile waste every second. With demand increasing for fast fashion products, so is the burden on the natural environment. However, this burden is not being experienced proportionally across the world. The real burden happens in the East, not the West, where the products are produced rather than consumed. In the East, the environmental impact occurs in the supply chains through excessive water use in wet textile processing, coal-fired boilers that power the textile industry, and lack of adequate technologies that make the process less efficient.

After consumption in the West, the textile waste produced gets dumped on the East. Clothes used to be made with the principal focus being durability which meant that these garments sent to the East could be resold in the markets. However, clothes are now made to keep up with seasonal trends or to become the next "must-have" thing. The industry changes so fast that clothes only get a couple of months before the next trend comes along. It is estimated that half of the fast-fashion clothes are disposed of in under a year. The quick turnover in clothes production means a reduced quality and are therefore no longer suitable to be sold in Eastern markets. 

We have an obligation to the environment to change how we go about consuming. Otherwise, we risk causing irreversible harm to both the planet and people.