In our world today, fashion, being one of the largest industries, has had a massive impact on our lives that roughly 1 out of 6 people are currently working part of the fashion industry. Fashion has gone by so fast that not so long ago, there are only four seasons; winter, spring, summer, and fall. Now there are 52 seasons related to fashion, one season for every week.
Have you ever thought of how fashion has been a significant impact on our lives? We’re not talking about how it has evolved throughout the years, we’re talking about how the fashion industry suddenly increased in production numbers, and where are they obtaining new materials.
Choosing Your Skin
Due to the fashion industry’s influence, consumers are now expressing who they are through the apparel they are currently wearing. But, as fashion keeps revising new trends for every season, the old ones will be thrown out and discarded. The growth in consumption has adverse outcomes as consumers were buying clothes 400 times more than 20 years ago.
The increase in supply and demand is all thanks to the adaptation of the internet. Because of this, consumers don’t need to be in the mall physically as they can choose whatever they want to buy online. For instance, consumers don’t need to travel hundreds of miles to buy a watch that they love; instead, they could go to thewatchcompany.com and buy it there.
Workers Having No Voice In The Situation
Next to China, Bangladesh is one of the largest exporters for garments as they have roughly 4 million workers doing their job for a profit of as low as 2 dollars a day. As of 2019, speculators have marked them as the lowest-paid employees in the world, and it will still be for more years to come.
The employees have to work all day, every day in a hazardous environment as they handle dangerous chemicals to produce the apparel that we wear today. The worst part? The majority of the workers are females, and with small salaries, they have no choice but to bring with them their children in a health deteriorating environment.
Only Caring About The Profit
Business owners only think about profits and nothing more. They don’t care about the cost of labor, the cost of polluting the water, they won’t even care if a fire breaks out in one of their factories and ends up killing hundreds of employees, not to mention the farmers that don’t have access to education or even healthcare.
There is also Kanpur, a large city in India, where it holds the capital of leather exports. Kanpur is polluting its waters by dumping roughly 50 million liters of harmful wastes out from their factories and into the source where they drink their water. Factories contaminated their land from the soil up to their local environment, and it affects people’s health.
Genetically Modified Cotton
For the last decade, roughly 80 percent of cotton materials are now genetically modified, and its growing most of it in Punjab, located between India and Pakistan. The use of pesticides has been rapidly growing to cultivate genetically-modified cotton, and the mass pollution of pesticides is what causes cancer, congenital disabilities, and mental retardation on locals.
The Destruction Of A Rainforest
Because of the high demand for cheap garments, companies are doing everything they can to make the production faster without thinking of the consequences it holds. Each year, hundreds or even thousands of hectares of rainforest are cut down only to be replaced by plantations for cultivating wood-based fabrics such as viscose, rayon, and modal.
The companies are blinded by greed that it doesn’t matter to them anymore if the ecosystem is failing with the loss of rainforests. Indonesia is a place where extensive deforestation is taking place, and it has taken over the site for the last ten years.
The Effect Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
As of recent reports, The fashion industry is held responsible for 10 percent of global carbon emissions. Because of the dirty energy used for manufacturing, production, and transportation, the factories have been generating massive amounts of greenhouse gases by powering their factories with coal, the dirtiest energy when it comes to carbon emissions.
Takeaway
The industry of fashion has a compelling impact on the world, especially in climate change, as they keep mass-producing garments with only limited resources and dirty energy, thus marking them as one of the top polluters in the world. However, every action taken to minimize the demand and supply for clothes is a step towards a cleaner environment.
