The effects on landfills on the Environment:
Hi readers, for today’s blog post I would like to share and explain effects on landfills on environment as a result of our fast fashion industry.
About two-thirds of landfill materials are made up of biodegradable organic matter from households, industries and others. The waste that humans produced has been detrimental to our environment and without proper management on our waste, more waste would end up into landfills and thus, be buried or incinerated, causing more air pollution.
A recent study found out that an estimated 9% of the plastic waste had been recycled out of the 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste (UN Environment, n.d). The way we are disposing of our waste is causing a huge impact on the environment particularly, increasing air pollutants in the atmosphere. As discussed in previous blogs, human overconsumption that results in more wastage of goods contributes to the rising waste on landfills. The burning of large amounts of waste in various parts of the globe results in high levels of harmful air pollutants such as carbon dioxide. The rise in levels of carbon dioxide, as a form of the greenhouse, contributes to the warming of the Earth. For instance, the fast fashion industry alone contributes to about 40% of world’s waste. This occurs as with rising trends in fashion which results in rising in clothing production to allow people to keep up with the new trend. This, however, led to declining use of previous clothing as the trend would be deemed ‘old’ compared to the ‘new’ trend in fashion. Often result in massive levels of waste from the fashion industry and more greenhouse gases than international shipping and flights combined (Souchet, n.d).
-https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/books/review/how-fast-fashion-is-destroying-the-planet.html
Why is this harmful?
For the past decade or so, the fashion industry has doubled its production, while the time for clothing to be worn before it was thrown away dropped by around 40% (Souchet, n.d). This clothing that became waste, an estimated 73% will be burned or buried in landfill and only 12% get recycled while less than 1% was recovered to make new clothing (Souchet, n.d). Such a pattern of consumption and the disposal of waste from the fashion industry is very damaging to the environment. The fashion industry is profit-driven should start initiatives to research on materials that can be used for the production of fashion that is made of recycled fabrics. However, more need to be done to ensure that these clothes are also being recycled and made available and accessible for consumers to recycle them easily.
To conclude, more pressure by various international organisations such as United Nations and local body such as the government, have to work together to implement policies to ensure multi-national organisations from the fashion industry reduce their contribution to air pollution. However, it is important to note that people’s behaviour and their consumption patterns also needs to change to reduce the high demand for new fashion.
For the upcoming post, I would like to share and explain some tips on how we can reduce our waste at home,
References
Souchet, F. (n.d.). Fashion has a huge waste problem. Here’s how it can change. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/how-the-circular-economy-is-redesigning-fashions-future/
Our planet is drowning in plastic pollution. This World Environment Day, it’s time for a change. (n.d.). https://www.unenvironment.org/interactive/beat-plastic-pollution/