As we wrap up our blog, we’ll like to talk about the top 4 impacts that our ‘poisons of consumerism’ has brought about.
1. Water pollution (fast fashion)
This is something we’ve mentioned before. Don’t expect these dyes to be organic and vegan and whatnot. To keep costs low, you can expect them to be pretty toxic, and a fair amount of that is going to be dumped into water bodies too (in the form of industrial waste).
2. Microplastics in our oceans (fast fashion and disposables)
Disposables made of plastics are frequently dumped into water bodies as a quick and easy solution to dispose of waste. Despite plastics being non-biodegradable, they do physically break down over time to produce microplastics. In case you’re wondering how the fashion industry contributes to this, every time we wash an article of clothing, 700,00 microscopic fibres are washed down the drain and into our oceans. These plastics are too small to be removed by filtration systems. As a result, they end up in water bodies where they bioaccumulate in the bodies of aquatic organisms and biomagnify in organisms higher up in the food chain (that refers to us).
3. Cheap labour (fast fashion)
This problem is more of a humanitarian issue. We didn’t discuss it much previously, but we feel that it’s something that should definitely be brought to light too. Most of the clothes manufactured for clothing companies are outsourced to less developed countries (LDCs). Just think about this: if these clothes are going to be sold so cheaply, how much would these workers be paid AFTER deducting material and overhead cost. The truth is, they’re paid peanuts!
4. Climate change (food wastage and disposables)
Food waste and disposables need to be burnt! Why? Because most countries (like Singapore) can’t afford to keep dumping our rubbish as it is into landfills. We just can’t afford the space. Incineration potentially reduces the volume of our waste by up to 96%! And as with the law of physics, mass can’t be created or destroyed, so that 96% that’s gone is turned into gases or particles that enter our atmosphere. These gases are predominantly CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) that, as usual, makes our dear Earth warmer and warmer. On top of all the GHGs released, microscopic aerosols are released into the air as well.
References
Niinimäki, K., Peters, G., Dahlbo, H., Perry, P., Rissanen, T. and Gwilt, A., 2020. The environmental price of fast fashion. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 1(4), pp.189-200.
Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) & The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Pulse of the fashion industry. globalfashionagenda.com https://www. globalfashionagenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ Pulse-of-the-Fashion-Industry_2017.pdf (2017).
State of Green. 2020. Waste | State Of Green. [online] Available at: <https://stateofgreen.com/en/sectors/waste/> [Accessed 23 July 2020].
Tonini, D., Albizzati, P. and Astrup, T., 2018. Environmental impacts of food waste: Learnings and challenges from a case study on UK. Waste Management, 76, pp.744-766.
