Fast fashion, when fashion devastates the environment
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Excess production and consumption make fashion numbers opaque. The excess supply of low-cost garments isthe dirty secret of the textile industry' and a source of environmental disasters. A recent investigation by the Guardian delves into the topic of fast fashion seen from the perspective of excessive production, or rather excess supply. Which has enormous but at the same time unknown numbers. (1)
The vicious cycle of fast fashion
On the one hand, the production of disposable, low-quality garments that are used very little is rampant. Sometimes never, they are thrown away with the price tag. Useless goods, which end up in landfills in Africa, in countries like Ghana and Nepal, and spread particles of pollutants, dyes but also micro and nanoplastics into the environment, found everywhere, in the seas, in the environment, in human blood. (2)
The other side of the phenomenon is excess consumption, also fueled by pervasive marketing that reproduces a cycle of promotions, discounts and targeted campaigns to invite consumers to continue buying new clothing.
Mystery about fast fashion numbers
The numbers There are really just estimates at stake. Between 10% and 40% of the clothing produced each year is not sold. But no one knows for sure how many garments are produced at the moment.
The Guardian writes that, according to the statistics available to date, 'between 80 and 150 billion garments are made every year'. The percentage of unsold clothes would correspond to a number that varies between 8 billion and 60 billion garments per year.
'No one knows exactly how many coats, jeans, T-shirts and trainers are produced each year, meaning no one knows how many items remain unsold in warehouses, destined for landfill or destruction. Without this information, trying to reduce the fashion industry's carbon footprint is a bit like trying to solve a puzzle in the dark', (The Guardian).
The opacity of the data
One of the problems of the textile sector is misinformation, Vox reports. (3). Rather than disinformation or the overused expression 'fake news', it is bad information, incomplete, misleading, based on questionable statistics, with opaque and not very clear study sources. With the result of not having defined the framework in which we must move to request new legislation or effective actions to protect the environment.
'8-10% of global emissions of greenhouse gases comes from the fashion industry, which is more than the aviation and shipping industries combined. The fashion industry produces and sells between 80 and 150 billion garments a year globally. Nearly three-fifths of all clothing products end up in incinerators or landfills within a few years of production', Vox points out.
The number range it is certainly too broad to take on a univocal meaning and give rise to significant actions. But there is plenty of evidence that something is not right, from piles of textile waste in Africa to drinking water polluted by microplastics. 'The statistic that 4% of global waste comes from the fashion industry' is the most documented fact, according to Vox.
An 'archaic' production system
At the root of overproduction of clothes, according to the Guardian, there are several reasons:
– manufacturers insist on minimum order quantities,
– the sales cycle is increasingly faster,
– there is a certain inability to interpret the market, to predict consumer demand.
A phenomenon symptomatic of an archaic production system, which incentivizes volume: the more t-shirts ordered, the cheaper the price for each item. Also because the highest cost factor concerns the machinery, not the workers or the fabrics.
The result It's an exorbitant waste. Fueling it is demand created and fueled by social media marketing, digital ads, email campaigns and a seemingly endless cycle of discounts and promotions.
Fast fashion out of fashion?
Excessive consumption of low cost clothing also raises reflections on consumer responsibility and awareness. Even before that, politics.
European legislation still pending on extended producer responsibility'it can't come soon enough', according to The Guardian.
The European Strategy for Textile Products sustainable and circular (4) estimates that in the EU alone
– every year approximately 5,8 million tonnes of textile products are thrown away, i.e. 11,3 kg per person,
– the consumption of textile products has the fourth largest impact on the environment and climate change, after food, housing and mobility and is one of the three main sources of pressure on water and land use.
Every second a truck of clothes incinerated
Globally the numbers soar:
– textile production almost doubled between 2000 and 2015,
– consumption of clothing and footwear is expected to increase by 63% by 2030,
– every second the equivalent of a truckload of textile materials is landfilled or incinerated,
– only just over 1% of the materials used to produce clothing are recycled to produce new ones,
– up to 35% of all microplastics released into the environment come from textile products. (5)
There is a lot of work to do so that fast fashion is 'out of fashion' as Europe hopes.
Sabrina Bergamini
Note
(1) Lucianne Tonti. 'It's the industry's dirty secret': why fashion's oversupply problem is an environmental disaster. The Guardian. 18.1.24
(2) For a summary of the discovery of micro and nanoplastics in the environment and in the human body, see Marta Strinati. A new analysis reveals the enormous amount of nanoplastics in bottled water. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(3) Alden Wicker. Fashion has a misinformation problem. That's bad for the environment. Vox. 31.1.20 https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/27/21080107/fashion-environment-facts-statistics-impact
(4) EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/textiles-strategy_en, https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9f3fc2a6-b02f-11ec-83e1-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-278929923
(5) Sabrina Bergamini. Microplastics from fabrics, the role of low cost fashion. Égalité. 5.5.22
