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People these days are complaining that they have nothing to wear, they only have few clothes etc. But what they don't know is that every piece of clothing we buy has an impact on our planet which makes it more difficult.
First, there’s water consumption. 2 billion pairs of jeans are produced every year, and a typical pair takes 7,000 litres of water to produce. For a t-shirt, it takes 2,700 litres of water to make just one– that’s the amount of water an average person drinks over the course of 900 days!
Secondly, there’s the dyeing process of which 1.7 million tonnes of various chemicals are used; not to mention the hazardous chemicals like PFCs that leave a permanent impact on our environment.An estimated 400 billion square meters of textiles are produced annually, of which 60 billion square meters are left on the cutting room floor. Each year over 80 billion pieces of clothing are produced worldwide, and after its short lifespan,three out of four garments will end up in landfills or be incinerated. Only a quarter will be recycled. Just over the last five years, the top fast fashion retailers grew 9.7 per cent per year, topping the 6.8 per cent of growth of traditional apparel companies.But the fashion world wasn’t always like this. According to Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth by Juliet B. Schor, Americans for instance, consume three times as much as their ancestors did fifty years ago, and they buy twice as many items of clothing as they did twenty years ago. In 1991, the average American bought 34 items of clothing each year. By 2007, they were buying 67 items every year. That’s a new piece of clothing every four to five days!
Sustainability is about people. The fast fashion system has truly enslaved countries and people in a system that will never change unless they change the business model. So it’s not about, “how do we make it better?” it’s “how do you change your business model so that these entire volumes can be reduced?” Let's say 3% to 10 % that people are donating to charities or orphanage etc is being used but what about the other percentage of it? The clothes that are not being used are disposed of in landfill sites which affects the environment. So let's think about it before bringing it home?
Resources: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Bl...
http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/livia-firth-says...
