Think Before You Shop
Fast fashion is budget-friendly, trending clothes inspired by celebrity fashion and catwalks that are made to meet consumers' desires. Through design, marketing, and manufacturing, high volumes of clothing are swiftly made in fast fashion.
Fast fashion clothing is usually very cheap because the businesses thrive off of economical textile production on a mass scale primarily sourced from China and India. These types of fashion are also affordable because of the low labor costs in overseas countries. Unfortunately, factories strive to boost profits and meet consumer demands, salaries are lowered and conditions deteriorate.
Some well-known fast fashion brands are H&M, Forever 21, Zara, and Shein. These stores and others are known for their inexpensive and low-quality products due to where they come from and the way the people are not paid sufficiently.
In these unsanitary, risky sweatshops, people are pushed to their limits. They face harsh 14-16 hour shifts, seven days a week, sometimes enduring physical and verbal mistreatment from their managers. On top of that, they're subjected to an alarming number of synthetic chemicals, around 8,000, while working. Some of these chemicals have been shown to cause cancer and factory workers are regularly exposed to these chemicals.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, there are environmental issues caused by fast fashion. “The Ellen Macarthur Foundation, a UNEP partner, has estimated that a truckload of abandoned textiles is dumped in landfill or incinerated every second. Meanwhile, it is estimated that people are buying 60 percent more clothes and wearing them for half as long.”
The toxic dyes from our clothing, the plastic fibers polluting our oceans, and the exploitation of underpaid laborers are all concerns that need more exploration.
The Fast fashion clothing industry generates an immense amount of debris. PIRG states, “Producing just one cotton t-shirt requires more than 700 gallons of water and releases the same greenhouse gas emissions as driving a car for about 10 miles. Around the world, the equivalent of one dump truck filled with clothing is sent to a landfill or incinerator every second, and more than $100 billion worth of materials are wasted each year.”
In conclusion, despite the various challenges accompanying fast fashion brands, we will all likely still shop at these types of stores because they are so popular. We should further our knowledge on this topic and try to make a difference in where we shop.
By Charlee Rice