Fast Fashion
Impacts of Fast Fashion on Plastic Pollution
Synthetic fabrics like polyester, polypropylene, acrylic, and nylon are made using fossil fuels. Because of their low cost, these synthetic materials are commonly used in fast fashion.
Synthetic fibers do not biodegrade. Washing synthetic clothes results in microplastics entering our waterways, as the small plastics escape filters and end up in the rivers and the oceans.
Approximately 35% of microplastics found in the oceans are synthetic fibers. (TheRoundup.org.)
Reduce and Re-wear, Reuse, Repair, Recycle, Resell, Research!
August 7, 2023: "Producing just one cotton t-shirt requires more than 700 gallons of water and releases the same greenhouse gas emissions as driving a car for about 10 miles."
Participate in the Waste is Out of Fashion Campaign by signing PIRG’s Petition to Forever 21, calling on them to publicly commit to not trash or burn overstock.
Resources that were shared:
“The Sustainable Style Guide for Everyone” from BLACK PEARL is a wonderful resource for anyone looking to learn more about sustainable fashion and how they can join the conversation.
Remake’s Fashion Accountability Report 2024 evaluates fashion companies’ corporate accountability efforts against their comprehensive, intersectional human rights and environmental impact criteria. This is both an educational and advocacy tool to promote necessary systemic change at various leverage points throughout the fashion industry.
Voices for Sustainable Fashion Webinar from PIRG
This webinar is 1 hour, but extremely inspiring.
100,000,000,000 items of clothing are made every year, double what was being producing in the year 2000! Production of this cheap, low-quality "fashion" contributes to the clothing industry being the largest growing waste stream in the US! Most of these clothes are never sold or worn, but are landfilled or burned.
The fashion industry is estimated to contribute up to 10% of global carbon emissions and to the worldwide scourge of microplastics!
In the United States, the growth of textile waste is outpacing the growth of every other major category of waste. Dealing proactively with textile waste in the US can decrease the use of upstream resources use to make fast fashion including oil, cotton, energy, water, and chemicals. It can also address environmental and social justice issues.
"Co-published by UNEP and UN Climate Change, the playbook provides a shared vision, principles and guidance on how to align consumer-facing communication across the global fashion industry with sustainability targets.
It shows how fashion communicators –marketers, brand managers, image-makers, media, influencers and beyond– can help advance towards the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals through:
Countering misinformation
Reducing messages perpetuating overconsumption
Redirecting aspiration to more sustainable lifestyles
Empowering consumers to demand greater action from businesses and policymakers"
Kingpins Show, March 24, 2021
Just about everyone loves jeans and this group connects the big players with some consideration for sustainability.
From Dr. Julia E. DeVoy: Call to Action (aftermathlearninglab.com/sculpture#call-to-action)
Learn
Complete Textile Waste Facts, a free 30-minute course about global textile pollution, environmental
justice, and structural solutions created by the Aftermath Learning Lab.
Attend the next LEAPS Textile Waste Conference. LEAPS is a virtual conference that exists to leverage
environmental, art & policy stakeholders (LEAPS) to advance awareness, collaboration and
transformation around policy and structural solutions to textile waste and related environmental health
challenges. The conference is hosted by Aftermath Learning Lab in partnership with The Boston
College Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, Make Fashion Clean, and The MFI Foundation.
Act
Sign the ReMake #NoNewClothes 90-Day Challenge and pledge to “buy no new clothes while we reflect on the values we want to wear; changes needed to create an inclusive, resilient fashion industry; and the role we can play moving forward.” Take the pledge, or learn more about it.