Catelli, Allegra. “Fast Fashion’s Environmental Impact in 2023, Explained.” Bloomberg, 9 June 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-09/fast-fashion-s-environmental-impact-in-2023-explained/.
This article mostly serves to summarize various statistics that help quantitatively show how clothing is hurting our environment. Overall, textile production generates as much as 8% of global emissions, but the main offenders are Cotton and Polyester, which make up 85% of clothing. Polyester is made up of crude oil, which takes up lots of energy to source, often releasing pollutants in the air. Making one cotton t-shirt can use up enough water that equates for someone to use for 3 years. In the last 20 years, our population has grown 30%, while the making of clothing has nearly doubled. A large majority of clothing isn’t recycled or reused, and mostly ends up in landfills, but some major companies are working to use recycled materials in their clothing production, such as recycled polyester.
This article is directly related to environmental science since it gives pure impacts of the clothing industry on our earth. As I read it, I felt quite hurted since I have bought a lot of clothing over the past 2 years or so, assuming that the clothing industry was becoming more sustainable over time, often seeing “recycled materials” labels all over clothing shops, but the truth is, the industry remains mostly the same as it did before it tried to be more environmentally friendly, and only time will tell how much the push for “recycled materials” in our clothes will actually save us from the unescapable mass of landfill.
I agree with your position. I too have also bought many clothes in the past 2 years, unknowing the harmful impacts. It quite concerning that even with sustainable solutions, such as “recycled material”, the damage to environment remains constant. This shows that people who are promoting “recycled material clothing” are wasting their time for a tiny benefit instead of finding another more beneficial solution.
Thank you for reading and your response. I’m not sure if what I wrote shows that promoting “recycled material clothing” has no benefit, I would like you to look at that.
I wonder how much of my clothing is fast fashion without even knowing it. You said that cotton clothing takes up as much water as one person would for 3 years. I thought cotton was a more sustainable solution for clothing, but even cotton has a huge effect when you realize how many are being made. Also, clothing made from polyester slowly degrades into small particles and leaks into the ocean where it can become part of the food chain. There really is no winning.
Thank you for your response and for reading my article. It does sometimes feel like that the fashion industry just can’t win environmentally, but I think you will find that kind of spews out into other industries.