Can Fast Fashion be Green?
“Fast-Fashion” is now trending almost every day in every fashion communities. This word is almost in every talk related to fashion, sustainability and the environment. Fast fashion basically refers to cheap garments produced, distributed rapidly, lightning speed and feed the mass. These clothes are quite copied from the famous runways. And since these clothes are cheaper (Much cheaper than you can imagine!), retailers have the option to showcase more items of the same trends, creating product differentiation at a much lower price than anticipated. This does satisfy a large section of customers who love to stay with the sudden changes in trends, the shopaholics, who love clothes and styles but in a cheaper range.
But every cheap thing comes with a price!
Fast Fashion contributes to a total of 10% of global carbon emission. This data has put a lot of worry lines on people who are environmentally conscious! According to the European Union’s data, it has been found that fast fashion is a major reason for drying up water, polluting water bodies like rivers and oceans. Do you know that 85% of all textiles go to dumps, and about 47% of the whole goes to oceans every year, And washing such a large amount of clothes daily cause around 500,000 tons of microfibers to seep into the oceans. That’s equivalent to 50 billion plastic bottles!
Fast Fashion is also some of the top major causes of fossil fuel depletion. We all know how Fossil Fuel reserves are under threat and a major global concern. To produce such a large amount of clothes and run the fast fashion industry smoothly, one needs a huge amount of energy. And fossil fuels take the brunt of the massive demand and supply gap.
According to the UN Climate Framework Convention of 2020, Fashion toxicity will be increasing by 60% by 2030.
Also, Fast Fashion is encouraging human rights violation like Child Trafficking, Sexual Abuse, Labour Abuse, Low Pay scale, Discrimination, Molestation and Mental Health Deterioration.
Fast Fashion has been tagged as a menace in the industry that soon needs to be curbed.
But how?
Green Fashion!
You probably must have heard the term Sustainable Fashion or Green fashion on some social platforms. Nowadays, it’s trending almost in every fashion forum.
Green fashion or Sustainable fashion refers to manufactured, produced, and designed apparels without using any toxic chemicals or harming nature. Green fashion is now a pioneer term in Ethical Fashion since it almost uses only natural products. It also ensures a platform that offers social welfare and proper labour rights.
Green Fashion is basically an amalgamation of coexistence of need, nature and rights since sustainable lifestyle and green fashion are intricately woven together for a better future.
But the question is, if Fast Fashion can convert into Green Fashion?
Anything in a great quantity will have negative effects, whether it’s fast fashion or Green fashion.
The problems with Fast Fashion are
- Supply-demand is too high
-
Cheaper rates of clothes affect the labour cost, and the designers and workers get no credits. - Due to high demands, companies resort to shortcuts, thus exploiting the labors and environment.
So, the problem is with Demand. Until there is control in Consumerism, we can’t say that there will be a difference. Cotton was also once considered in a green fashion. But with high demands, the production of cotton through natural ways was not enough to fill the gap. High amount of production from limited land through fertilizers and pesticides are also making land barren after few years and consuming 3 times water compare to bamboo. And thus, the use of chemical dyes and use of pesticides makes cotton textiles a part of fast fashion and, thus, a vast part of pollution.
Everything comes down to us.
Yes! Green fashion will ensure an ethical platform for both workers and the environment, reducing the toxic waste and the quality of clothes. Still, it will be again challenging to meet the current demand-supply gap. Once consumers start to be aware and live sustainably, there will be an effect of Green Fashion positively.
Start swapping your closet green with BamboologyTrends today! Check out our exclusive clothes, which are purely made from Bamboo!