Fashion is undeniably one of the most important aspects of popular culture; what you wear tends to define you. As people search stores for the perfect outfit, they pay attention to color, style, season, and most importantly, price. However, while the tag on that new Lily dress you just couldn’t live without may be within your price range, the environmental impact it took to produce that dress is adding to the destruction of our only livable planet.
From using irreplaceable resources to polluting life-sustaining bodies of water, the fashion industry, like many other industries today, has had detrimental effects on our Earth. This is mostly through the release of excessive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Almost every piece of machinery used to create the clothes we wear every day emit large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. These include machinery used to pick cotton, appliances used to spin, knit, or weave together the fabric, and planes, boats, cars, trucks, and trains used to transport the finished product from the factory to the store where the consumer will eventually purchase it.
The impact the fashion industry has on the environment is quite startling. For example, it is estimated that the fashion industry itself has discharged one ton of carbon emissions into our atmosphere. Similarly, the annual consumption of textiles and apparel is six trillion tonnes, which requires one trillion kilowatt hours of electricity and up to nine trillion liters of water to produce. That's enough energy to power a little more than one billion homes for a month, and enough water to fill 100,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. These numbers are even more alarming when applied to individual articles of clothing. It takes 2.2 pounds of cotton to construct a pair of blue jeans, and it takes 2,245 gallons of water to raise 2.2 pounds of cotton, according to a study by the World Wildlife Fund. Those 2,245 gallons of water is enough to satisfy 4,490 famished people for a day. Producing a basic men’s T-shirt results in 6.574 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which is more than 12 times the weight of the product itself. In layman’s terms, we are putting 12 times more harm into the Earth than the good we are getting out of these products. Producing the articles of clothing that people wear every day is posing an ominous threat to the world we live in.
Now, I’m not saying that we should all stop wearing clothes and let everything loose, but there are alternative solutions to this problem. The first is recycling. In one year, the United States itself throws away one million tonnes of material. Instead of dumping this material into landfills, it can be recycled and used again. Old fabric can be used for quilts, as fiber, and as rags for rugs, stuffing, or other small craft items. If all wasted fabric was instead recycled, textile production would decrease by 15-20 percent due to a lack of demand.
Finally, the last option I will present is more of a grassroots operation. It starts in your closet and expands to where you buy your clothes. Next time you go through your closet to make space for new items, try donating your clothes to Goodwill or another thrift store in your area. By not throwing away your unwanted items, it makes it easier for someone else to wear them, instead of buying something brand new from a store. When shopping, adopt the same attitude. Go to thrift stores and flea markets. Your purchase will have virtually no negative impact on the Earth, and you’ll save a whole lot of money. Thrifting not your style? Scour Etsy for cute upcycled clothes. Your outfit will be eco-friendly and one of a kind.
It’s undeniable that the fashion industry has had a negative impact on the environment. However with a little bit of work and some different shopping destinations, green can become the new black.
