Hi fellow ethical fashionistas, I cannot believe we are nearing the end of our fast fashion / blogging journey. Today’s post will be more reflective because I would like to take some time to reflect upon these few weeks of researching and learning about fast fashion with regards to the module and pollution. Coming into this module and topic of fast fashion, my views have always been skewed towards how big companies, corporations and government legislation are the ones who are supposed to be responsible for reducing and curbing these emissions. However, after these 13 weeks, my views have indeed changed because I do realise the importance of the individual’s effort through dematerialisation. Apart from that, some things that have stuck with me through this blogging journey is how the pollutant transfer continuum has been made so clear and prominent through our journey of exploring the fashion industry.
Firstly, I would like to talk about dematerialisation. My views towards environmental degradation has always been that the responsibility should be put on big capitalistic corporations and government legislations. In my opinion, the individual can only do so much, so why must the individuals take the blame or be responsible for the environmental degradation? However, after the week’s lecture and tutorial about one’s individual responsibility and contributions, I have come to realise that individuals do still have a substantial amount of human agency. In relation to the fast fashion industry, if each individual were to just pause for a minute and consider the effects and resources that went into making a piece of clothing, I think that would be enough to have big ripple effects in the fashion industry. Through dematerialisation, I realised that we can actually examine the amount of resources that goes into the various items that we are consuming. For a pair of jeans, it uses up 10850L of virtual water to manufacture (Hoekstra & Chapagain, 2007). If each consumer pauses and reduces their consumption of a pair of jeans by 1 annually, there would be significant changes in the amount of water resources we will be consuming globally. Therefore, I can safely say that the topic on dematerialisation has significantly changed my views because more can be done as individuals to prevent the environment from irreversible degradation. Although a lot of the responsibility should still fall on corporations and the government, some of it can still be taken up by the individual too. This way, everyone will have their own share of working towards a more sustainable future.
Apart from dematerialisation, I would also like to talk about the pollutant transfer continuum. Even though our blog posts are focused on water, air and soil pollution separately, through the lens of the fashion industry, it has been made prominent to me that these pollutants are closely linked to each other. Not only are pollutants transboundary, they can be mobilised and transported to different sinks. For example, the pesticides sprayed onto cotton fields can be washed off as runoff and enter into the surrounding water bodies. This precisely shows how these sinks are closely related to each other and should not be thought of as binaries or mutually exclusive. Hence, this is something that will stick with me for a long time because I would reflect on my seemingly small action and how it can possibly relate to the bigger picture in the pollutant transfer continuum.
At the end of the day, I have truly learnt so much from this module and through these 13 weeks of working on this blog. It has greatly changed and reinforced some of my views and also allowed me to gain new insights. I am also very glad to be able to form close friendships with Jia Hui while working on this blog and to be able to share the joys of running this blog together! I think that’s all from me for now, thank you for visiting our blog and I hope that our posts have indeed shed light on certain issues or brought new or unique insights to our readers. Thank you and until next time!
~ Yun Xuan
References:
Hoekstra, A. Y., & Chapagain, A. K. (2007). Water footprints of nations: water use by people as a function of their consumption pattern. Water Resources Management, 21, 35-48.
