What is the environmental cost of fast fashion? - Ekolist.cz<

60% of completed clothing purchases will become waste at the end of the same year. / Illustration photoLicense All rights reserved. Further distribution is possible only with the consent of the author LoloStock / Wikimedia Commons The problem of so-called fast fashion is sometimes presented as a matter of consumer mentality, accelerating the generation of waste. Of course, this is true, but only to a certain extent. The T-shirt, which weighs a few blankets and ends up in a landfill or incinerator after a few wears, weighs much more. That's when it comes to its overall environmental impact. Details are given in a study published in the journal Nature. We know ads are annoying. And we respect that you have them turned off :-) We will be happy if you support us differently.

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We can start with a popular-educational video produced by NeoMam. In its introduction, the authors mention that 60% of completed purchases of clothing will become waste at the end of the same year. Worn, but also quite often unworn / unsold clothes, end up in landfills or go to incinerators. It is around 18.6 million tons a year globally. The authors of the video compare the volume of clothing to the quantified weight of various monuments and sights. And they are talking about the fact that by the set trend of commercial fast fashion, we will reach some 150 million tons of discarded clothes by 2050, which would be able to balance the Great Wall of China twice in weight.

It's not just about weight, it's about life cycle

Scary? Sure, but not complete. In fact, it's a little worse. The problem is / is not just one T-shirt, which will become waste, even though millions of them can accumulate in the landfill. It is also about the value of material, energy and raw materials consumed for its production, emissions associated with its transport, sale. The whole life cycle of one T-shirt. And if we take that into account, as well as the growing volume of textiles from clothes in landfills, even a dozen Great Walls of China will not be enough to quantify our environmental damage. As?

Kirsi Niinimäki from the Department of Design at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland, estimates that waste associated with global clothing production is 92 million tonnes a year. Although garments are basically fibers and fabrics, process water is also required for their production. Some 79 trillion liters. Really difficult to imagine. And further? As Niinimäki mentions, it is often difficult to see the whole picture. The clothing industry has very long and complex supply chains, starting somewhere in agriculture and the petrochemical industry. And every step of the chain is burdened by the consumption of materials, water, chemicals, energy. In the same way, at all these levels, which are gradually moving towards the T-shirt, there is damage to the environment, release of pollutants, production of emissions.

Emission? Similar to those from transportation and construction

For example, we know that cotton cultivation is not one of the most environmentally friendly agricultural practices and that oil extraction for the production of plastics (fibers) is a burden on the environment. We can also quantify it. In sum, however, these individual ugly elements meet in a T-shirt weighing a few blankets. Paradoxically, new technologies and industrial production do not result in a more advanced, durable, better t-shirt, but only t-shirts cheaper and more affordable, produced faster and in larger volumes. The consumer mentality of buyers, amplified by the marketing of sellers, adds a lot of acceleration.

Over the last 40 years, clothing consumption has increased from 5.7 kg to 13.0 kilograms per person. This is despite the fact that ours is now 3 billion more and not everyone has new clothes. Emission production? When externalities are taken into account, we get to the fact that the clothing industry produces 8-10%, ie 4-5 billion tons per year. It depends on which of the current estimates you choose, but "fashion" is a problem 4-5 times greater than flying, slightly smaller than the entire transport sector (which accounts for about 14% of the global balance) and a roughly comparable problem. as a construction industry. If we talk about surface and sub-surface water pollution, the clothing industry is responsible for one-fifth (20%) of global water pollution. And of course, when it comes to microplastics in the oceans, the clothing industry (both production and consumption) is responsible for 35%.

What does this mean? That fast consumption fashion is really a problem that is not limited to the net weight of the waste produced. And its solution begins with ourselves.

We add that of the average 9,000,000 tons of plastics that end up in the oceans each year, only 2,000 tons are in straws (0.025%). We bother us and we forbid them. But clothes, which make up a third of the volume of such waste, do not bother us yet. The average German population saved 2.4 grams of plastic by banning straws, but in the meantime he bought 16.7 kilograms of clothes a year, which he put away after a year. The British have saved two grams of plastic per person, but they even buy 26.7 kilograms of clothes a year. The criminalization of one small source of waste is celebrating success, while another, crucial source, remains overlooked. The much more fundamental problem for the health of the planet and the environment is not the straws, but the clothing industry.

Popular-educational video produced by NeoMam: