The fashion industry has been named the second biggest polluter in the world, after the oil and gas industries. Every stage of clothing production has some sort of pollutive effect on the world, but since the 1990s, growth of the multi trillion pound garment industry has been fuelled by so-called ‘fast fashion’, which, as the name suggests, is the production of garments but in the quickest and cheapest way possible.
Fast fashion causes damage to the planet in many ways. One being that due to the mass production of the items, there are far too many being produced for consumers to be able to purchase, leading to landfills full of clothing items that haven’t even ever been worn. This creates huge amounts of pollution for the planet.
According to a survey by Fashion Revolution, British fashion shoppers spent about £3.5bn on Christmas party clothing last year – but 8 million of those items will be on their way to landfill after just one wear. Hardly seeming like a justified way of damaging the planet.
So what can we do to change this? Well over the past few years, vintage clothing has become popular as people have been buying second hand and retro garments and giving them a new life. This can help dramatically change the problems that are being caused by fast fashion! As well as that, many small businesses are taking on this challenge and have taken it upon themselves to sell vintage or second-hand clothing they have sourced themselves, on apps such as Depop, Esooko and more. With Esooko pushing second-hand fashion with their new app which with every purchase you help contribute to the making of corals, trees or teaching students on the impacts of fast fashion. You can start your own vintage business by getting vintage clothing through vintage clothing wholesalers
Other consumers are going out of their way to not buy from brands such as BooHoo, Shein and others as they don’t want to contribute to the bad effects they are having on the planet. So what will these big brands do to help the issue? Well not a lot as of now, they haven’t made any big changes to solve these issues and have made no plans to change anything in the near future. But we, as individual consumers, can always choose to buy recycled clothing and avoid fast fashion!