Jackson Tait
Edge columnist
Fast fashion is one of the biggest sources of pollution in the world today. The industry is currently responsible for more carbon emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined according to Emma Ross George Washington university law school student. Because of this there is an expected 50% increase in greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade.
According to GetGreenNow.com Fast fashion is used to describe the business model of making cheaper copies of recent catwalk and other fashion trends and then mass producing them while the demand is high and using consumerism tactics to make people impulsively buy clothes they don’t even want and will only wear a few times before either giving away or throwing in the garbage.
Environmental impacts are not the only thing wrong with fast fashion, many of the main problems come from social justice issues such as labour relations, dangerous working conditions, and child labour.
There are an estimated 168 million kids working in factories right now and these are usually the go to option because they are easy to exploit. Many companies put these kids in concentration camps that would be best described as a slavery camp. Child labour has been a concern for a long time, but the rise of fast fashion and its consumerism demands has made it hard for human rights organizations to make systematic changes in the industry. Adult employees of most fashion industries are made to work in factories with very little ventilation and are forcing them to breathe in toxic chemicals which are known to result in incurable diseases. Most of these companies like Shien, ASOS, Zaful etc. Make their employees work in buildings that have little to no safety conditions that can result in many injuries much like the Old Navy building that collapsed a few years ago.
As of right now the global fast fashion market is expecting to hit $254 million by 2027, from $203 million in 2020.
There are some anti fast fashion foundations like the Clean Clothes Campaign and UAL that are working toward fighting against specific workers’ rights violations and collaborate with workers to achieve goals like payment of living wages and getting rid of gender-based violence in the workplace.
Sources:
Explorative working conditions in the fast fashion industry (girottishoes.com)