Pollution in the fashion industry

The fashion industry is the second largest polluting industry in the world,^[1] behind only fossil fuel energy production. The production and distribution of the crops, fibers, and garments used in fashion all contribute to differing forms of environmental pollution, including water, air, and soil pollution. The fashion industry is responsible for 10 percent of the carbon footprint of the world^[2] as well as it being the second greatest polluter of local freshwater in the world.^[3] Some of the main factors that contribute to this industrial caused pollution are the over consumption of fashion items, the use of synthetic fibers, and the agriculture pollution of fashion crops.

Fast fashion

The amount of new garments bought by Americans has tripled since the 1960s, this exponential increase causes the need for more resources, and the need for a speedier process from which the clothes are produced. One of the main contributors to the rapid production of pollution is the rapid production of clothes due to the rapid consumption of customers. Every year the world as a whole consumes more than 80 million items of clothing.^[4] Those clothes contribute to resource pollution and waste pollution, due to the fact that most of these items will one day be thrown out. People are consuming more and they want it for cheaper prices. And the companies producing these cheap items who are making a profit want the clothes as fast as possible, this creates a trend called fast fashion. Fast fashion is "an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers."^[5] The idea is that speedy mass production combined with cheap labor will make clothes cheaper for those buying them, thus allowing these fast fashion trends to maintain economic success. The main concern with fast fashion is the clothes waste it produces. According to the Environmental Protection Agency^[6] 15.1 million of textile clothing waste was produced in 2013 alone.^[7] When textile clothing ends up in landfills the chemicals on the clothes, such as the dye, can cause environmental damage by leaching the chemicals into the ground. The excess waste also contributes to the issue of using so many sites just to store waste and garbage.

Synthetic fibers

Now that there is continuous increase in the amount of clothing that is consumed, another issue that arises is that the clothing is no longer made from natural materials/crops. Clothing used to be produced by mainly "natural fibers"^[8] such as wool, cotton or silk. Now there is a switch from natural fibers to inexpensive synthetic textile fibers^[9] such as polyester or nylon. Polyester is one of the most popular fibers used in fashion today, it is found in about 60% of garments in retail stores, that is about 21.3 million tons of polyester.^[10] The popularity of polyester keep increasing as well, seeing as there was a 157 percent increase of polyester clothing consumption from 2000 to 2015.^[10] Synthetic polyester is made from a chemical reaction of coal, petroleum, air and water^[11] two of which are fossil fuels. When coal is burned it creates heavy amounts of air pollution containing carbon dioxide. When petroleum is used it creates several air pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide.^[12] The creation of polyester creates pollution, as well as its finished project. Polyester is "non-biodegradable"^[13] meaning it can never be converted to a state that is found in naturally found in the natural world. Due to all of the time and resources it takes to make polyester and it never being able to revert to a state that can contribute to any natural nutrient cycles polyester can be considered energy intensive with no net gain. When polyester clothing is washed micro plastics are shedding and entering the water system which is leading to micro pollution in water ways, including oceans.^[14] Due to the micro pollutants small size it is easy for fish within waterways to absorb them in their body fat. The fish can then be consumed by humans, and these humans will also absorb the polyester micro pollutants in the fish in a process called biomagnification.^[15]

Pollution of fashion crops

While it has been stated that synthetic fibers are having a negative impact on the environment, the natural crop growing fibers also have been contributing to pollution through the form of agriculture. Cotton production requires a large amount of pesticides and water use.^[16] Cotton is considered the world's dirtiest crop because it uses 16% of the world's pesticides.^[17] Two of the main ingredients in pesticides are nitrates and phosphates. When the pesticides leak into stream systems surrounding the cropland the nitrates and phosphates contribute to water eutrophication. Water eutrophication is an environmental phenomenon that causes a depletion of oxygen when the nutrient overload from pesticides causes a boom in plant growth and death.^[18]

See also

Sustainable fashion

References