Wasteful Consumerism

Consumerism has rapidly grown in recent years. Fast fashion has become more prevalent; clothing is produced on shorter time frames with new designs appearing every few weeks to satisfy the demand for the latest trends, but with this comes increased waste. It has been estimated that there are 20 new garments manufactured per person each year and we are buying 60% more than we were in the past years. Each garment is worn less before being disposed of and this shorter lifespan means higher relative manufacturing emissions.

The fast fashion industry focuses on speed and low costs in order to deliver frequent new collections inspired by catwalk looks or celebrity styles. But it is particularly bad for the environment, as pressure to reduce cost and the time it takes to get a product from design to shop floor means that environmental corners are more likely to be cut. Criticisms of fast fashion include its negative environmental impact, water pollution, the use of toxic chemicals and increasing levels of textile waste.

Vibrant colors, prints, and fabric finishes are appealing features of fashion garments, but many of these are achieved with toxic chemicals. Textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of clean water globally, after agriculture. Greenpeace’s recent Detox campaign has been instrumental in pressuring fashion brands to act to remove toxic chemicals from their supply chains. Many of these are banned or strictly regulated in various countries because they are toxic, bio-accumulative, disruptive to hormones and carcinogenic.

Polyester is the most popular fabric used for fashion. But when polyester garments are washed in domestic washing machines, they shed microfibers that add to the increasing levels of plastic in our oceans. These microfibers are minute and can easily pass through sewage and wastewater treatment plants into our waterways, but because they do not biodegrade, they represent a serious threat to aquatic life. Small creatures such as plankton eat the microfibers, which then make their way up the food chain to fish and shellfish are eaten by humans.

There is a growing interest in organic cotton, with H&M and Inditex, the parent company of Zara, featuring among the world’s top five users of organic cotton by volume in 2016. But overall use of organic cotton represents less than 1 percent of the world’s total annual cotton crop.

Textile waste is an unintended consequence of fast fashion, as more people buy more clothes and don’t keep them as long as they used to. The international expansion of fast fashion retailers exacerbates the problem on a global scale. Wardrobes in developed nations are saturated, so in order to sell more products, retailers must tempt shoppers with constant newness and convince them the items they already have are no longer fashionable. Increasing disposable income levels over recent generations means there is less need to “make do and mend”, as it’s often cheaper and more convenient to buy new than have an item repaired.

Clothing costs have risen slower than those of other consumer goods, increasing their affordability, and there will be continued growth as the middle class expands and purchases increase to match this demographic shift. This combination of factors is expected to result in a tripling of resource consumption by 2050.

Textile production is one of the most polluting industries, producing 1.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent per year, which is more emissions than international flights and maritime shipping. Over 60% of textiles are used in the clothing industry and a large proportion of clothing manufacturing occurs in China and India, countries which rely on coal-fueled power plants, increasing the footprint of each garment. It has been stated that around 5% of total global emissions come from the fashion industry.

So, can consumers reduce the environmental cost of fast fashion when out shopping? Choosing an eco-friendly fabric is complex as there are pros and cons to all fiber types. Garments that are labeled as being made from natural fibers are not necessarily better than synthetic, as fiber choice is only one part of a complex picture. Fibers still have to be spun, knitted or woven, dyed, finished, sewn and transported, all of which have different environmental impacts.

For example, choosing organic fabrics is better than choosing non-organic fabrics in terms of the chemicals used to grow the fibers, but organic cotton still requires high amounts of water and the impact of dyeing it is higher than the impact of dyeing polyester.

Recycled content is often best of all, as it reduces the pressure on virgin resources and tackles the growing problem of waste management. For example, Patagonia was the first outdoor clothing brand to make polyester fleece out of plastic bottles. In 2017, it decided to rationalize its T-shirt ranges and from spring 2018, will offer only two fabric options of either 100 percent organic cotton or a blend of recycled cotton and recycled polyester.