How could a dainty piece of clothing possibly pose great harm to the environment? Even so, they are so stylish and worth my buck! I need them to pull off my perfect outfit!
Shared similar thoughts? Well, this is the convenient mask of fast fashion. Surprise, surprise! Fast fashion might just be more than the pleasant image we have long associated it to. Here are some shocking facts about our fashion industry.
Every second a garbage truck full of clothes is dumped or burned in a landfill (UNEP, n.d.)
The cheapness in both quality and price perpetuates the culture of fast fashion disposal. The UNECE and WRI reports that 85% of textiles end up in landfills each year. Now, let’s contextualise that. That’s enough to fill 25 times the land that the NUS campus is built on annually.
500 000 tons of microfibers are released into the ocean from washing clothes each year
It seems like common consensus, plastic bottles are bad for the environment. We see it, it is tangible. Some people do their best to avoid using them. What if I told you, 500 000 tons of microfibers is actually equivalent to 50 billion plastic bottles. In 2017, the IUCN reported that 35% of all micro plastics come from synthetic textiles like polyester. These small pieces of plastic that never biodegrade are extremely consequential to marine life, affecting food chains and ultimately their ecosystem.
The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions
How much is that exactly? Well is more than the combination of all international flights and maritime shipping. Who would have thought that pieces of cloth emit more carbon than gas pumping planes and ships. Carbon emissions as we know are a form of greenhouse gas, ultimately contributing to wider global implications.
It takes about 700 gallons of water to produce one cotton shirt
That’s the amount we would drink if we drank at least 8 cups a day for 3.5 years. Remind you, for one – just one cotton shirt. In 2018, London Textile Forum estimated that about 80 to a 100 billion garments were produced a year. Now, let’s do some simple maths. That’s A LOT of water. It is so much water that the Aral Sea, one of the world’s largest lakes in Uzbekistan, is now more like a desert than a lake. This was the consequence of intense cotton farming over a short span of 50 years.
Shocking huh. Just as fast fashion is fast, so its implications to the environment – too fast and too deadly. Perhaps, we all need to slow down.
References
Business Insider. 2020. The Fashion Industry Emits More Carbon Than International Flights And Maritime Shipping Combined. Here Are The Biggest Ways It Impacts The Planet.. [online] Available at: <https://www.businessinsider.com/fast-fashion-environmental-impact-pollution-emissions-waste-water-2019-10#it-takes-about-2000-gallons-of-water-to-produce-a-pair-of-jeans-thats-more-than-enough-for-one-person-to-drink-eight-cups-per-day-for-10-years-16> [Accessed 28 June 2020].
Lsx. 2020. The Textile Issue – London Textile Forum 2018: What, Why, How And When? – Lsx. [online] Available at: <http://www.lsx.org.uk/blog/textile-issue-london-textile-forum-2018/#:~:text=Official%20figures%20regarding%20the%20amount,clothing%20are%20produced%20each%20year.> [Accessed 28 June 2020].
