Hello and welcome back to our blog! In line with the previous post, this post will be focusing mainly on how fast fashion is polluting our water.
It’s no secret that the fast fashion industry is growing at a staggering rate and that its inherently unsustainable growth model, centred around relentless production and consumption, is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, natural resources and water.
In 1977, 31 million tonnes of textiles were produced worldwide and by 2007, this had risen to 80 million tonnes. Turning this amount of textiles into clothing requires a staggering 1,074 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, 132 million tonnes of coal and up to 9 trillion litres of water (Siegle, 2011).
The main culprit for the fashion industry’s huge water footprint is cotton growth. According to WWF, it can take up to 2,700 litres to produce the cotton needed to make a single t-shirt (enough for one person to drink for two and a half years) and a massive 7000 litres to make one pair of jeans (WWF, 2017).
To put this into context, throughout the whole of the fashion production line, water is exploited at every step. First to mix in chemicals and dyes, and then to rinse and set them. Additives from bleaches and dyes contaminate the freshwater, which, having become a chemical cocktail, is then discarded as waste. So, to put that into even more perspective, if the average woman owns 7 pairs of jeans (I personally own about 10) and only wears 4 on a regular basis, she has an estimated 8,100 litres of wastewater sitting in her wardrobe – and that’s not even counting the t-shirts and jumpers piled up next to them.
Sources: https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/how-is-fast-fashion-polluting-our-water/77704/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/37506609369361379/
The River That Turned Red
Most fashion suppliers have to adhere to strict environmental policies implemented by the government, yet there have been several instances of serious water contamination due to unregulated factories exploiting their natural water resources. Some larger textile mills discard as much as 2 million gallons of wastewater per day, most of which flows untreated into surrounding freshwater sources (LaRose, 2015).
One example would be when the Jian river running through the Chinese city of Wenzhou turned completely red overnight in December 2011 (as seen in figure 1 below). It was caused by the illegal dumping of excess red dye by a well-known textile factory into the city’s stormwater pipe network connecting to the river.
Figure 1: River in China turns blood-red
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/16/world/asia/china-river-of-red/index.html
So, what can you do?
As a consumer, you can buy less or you can choose to buy organic cotton products instead. A company leading the way with this is People Tree- over 80% of their collections are made with 100% certified organic cotton. Unlike the chemical cloud lingering over cotton on most large-scale farms, organic cotton is grown without harmful fertilisers or pesticides so the soil and groundwater aren’t contaminated by toxic runoff, and instead are safe enough to grow alternative crops.
Thank you and we hope to see you again next week!
Sources:
- LaRose, D. (2017) A Thirsty Industry: Fashion’s Colossal Water Footprint. https://www.carmenbusquets.com/journal/post/fashion-waste-water
- Siegle, L. (2011). To die for: is fashion wearing out the world?. HarperCollins UK.
- WWF (2017). Changing fashion The clothing and textile industry at the brink of radical transformation. https://www.wwf.ch/sites/default/files/doc-2017-09/2017-09-WWF-Report-Changing_fashion_2017_EN.pdf
