Fast Fashion In Our Society
Fast Fashion is defined as cheap trendy clothing that reflects runway celebrity culture. The idea behind fast fashion is to get the newest trends on the market as fast as possible. One of the worst parts of fast fashion is a single company having thousands of items in their inventory. This deeply adds to the pollution of our environment.
The problem is synthetic material. Synthetic material is offly cheap to produce. As well as the fact that it is also produced quickly. More than 60 percent of materials produced to make clothes these days are synthetic. As a result, these synthetic materials are made from fossil fuels such as coal and oil. These fossil fuels are going to waste for the fashion industry, whereas could be conserved for energy uses.
On the other hand, fast fashion is responsible for a large amount of economic sales. Fast fashion also makes otherwise expensive clothing available for people who can’t afford expensive clothing. As well as the fact that cheap clothing means more sales. In order to scale the large clothing market, it is almost impossible to imagine. The clothing and accessory industry grows over six percent a year. It is also valued at 1.5 trillion USD in 2020.
Although the clothing industry does utilize extremely fast runway looks, the result is waste. Not only pollution but physical waste that ends up in landfills. Just in a single year, in 2017, there were 16.9 million tons of waste generated then thrown away. In addition to landfill waste, the fashion industry produces 20 percent of the world’s wastewater in our water sources. The reason for all this is that cheaply made clothing is made to be disposed of. Fashion comes and goes, and the clothes that you purchase stay forever.
Although there is no ideal way to combat this problem since people are always going to be the culprit of a good deal. One way to help and slow down the fast fashion industry is to recycle. Recycling clothes is a very effective way to reuse synthetic materials that would otherwise be thrown away. As well as buying clothes used, such as thrifting and trading with friends.
All in all, there is no debate that fast fashion is harming our environment and diminishing natural resources. However, the debate is whether or not to risk the economy in order to slow pollution. The use of fast fashion in our society around the world is harming our natural environment more than it helps the economic environment.