Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion

You wouldn't expect it to be, but the clothing industry is one of the worlds most harmful polluters, only second to the oil industry [1]. these big clothing brands are focusing on how much product they can produce, they don't focus on any of the consequences, one of them being the huge environmental impact the fashion industry has. Fast fashion creates many problems while making and distributing clothing, some can be more easily fixed then others.

One of the fashion industries main problems is the amount of water it wastes, In 2015 the fashion industry consumed 79 billion cubic tonnes of water during the manufacturing of clothing, and this number is only expected to increase by 2030 by 50%[2]. This may seem as a shock because you wouldn't think that it would take that amount of water to make clothing, but it is because most of the water consumed is put into watering cotton. The Fashion industry doesn't only use billions of tonnes of water per year, it also pollutes it. It has become the second worst water pollutant after agriculture. The industry uses more than 8000 different chemicals in the process of dying and printing textiles [3], where many of these chemicals are deathly to humans. Some of these chemicals are getting into water somehow or another.

The fashion industry creates millions of tonnes of waste just dumped in landfills each year, which i mention previously that is created because many people are donating clothes but it doesn't all get donated. Now, you may be thinking why you haven't heard of any of this before, it is because the industries that create this mess also run the modern fashion world for the average consumer. There is hope because are precautions one can take to try and stay above it all.

1. University of Queensland, Fast Fashion Quick to Cause Environmental Havoc, Nov 14 2018, https://sustainability.uq.edu.au/projects/recycling-and-waste-minimisation/fast-fashion-quick-cause-environmental-havoc

2. refinery29, It Takes 2,720 Liters Of Water To Make Just One T-Shirt, march 22 2018,

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/water-consumption-fashion-industry

3. University Institute of Fashion Technology, Textile Dying Industry and Environmental Hazard, 2012, https://file.scirp.org/pdf/NS20120100003_72866800.pdf