The phrase “fast fashion” refers to low-cost clothing collections that mimic current luxury fashion trends and turns them into garments in high street stores at breakneck speed. The cheap, low-quality clothing produced by companies such as Primark and H&M encourage the garments to have a short life span, but this culture of throwaway fashion comes with its consequences.

Fast Fashion’s impact on the planet is alarming. The pressure to reduce cost and speed up production time means that environmental corners are usually cut.

Fast Fashion companies are using large amounts of cheap, toxic textile dyes that make their way into aquatic habitats and underground aquifers. The fashion industries production line is the second largest polluter of clean water globally after agriculture.

Cheap textiles also have a big impact. Polyester is one of the most popular fabrics used in fast fashion. It is derived from the fossil fuels coal and petroleum, high amounts of energy are used in extracting the oil from the ground as well as in the production of the polymers. Large amounts of energy are used in each step of processing a garment, the textile industry, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is the 5th largest contributor to CO2 emissions in the United States. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) says 10 percent of the global carbon emissions are emitted by the apparel industry.

The emission of greenhouse gases is a major contributing factor to climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes' Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5℃ warned that if the planet continues to warm and reaches 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, 18% of insects, 16% of plants and 8% of invertebrates would be negatively affected.

Man-made fibres such as polyester shed microfibres when put through a wash, adding to the increasing levels of toxin absorbing micro-plastic in our oceans and waterways. The rise in production of the fashion industry has made the demand for man-made fibres, especially polyester, nearly double in the last 15 years, according to figures from the Technical Textile Markets.

Natural fabrics are also a problem, particularly at the scale fast fashion demands. Cotton requires enormous quantities of water and pesticides, especially in developing countries. In 2013 China’s Xinjiang province alone produced cotton on 1,000,000 hectares of arable land for the textile industry. Worldwide cotton uses 311,000 square kilometres of fertile land, about the size of Germany. The land use combined with the heavy use of chemicals destroys natural habitats and poisons wildlife, negatively affecting biodiversity.  According to the UNECE cotton farming is responsible for 24 percent of insecticides and 11 percent of pesticides worldwide despite using only 3 percent of the world’s arable land.

The impacts of pesticides on wildlife are extensive. It can affect all manner of wildlife including insects, birds, small mammals, fish, amphibians, and the biota within the soil. Pesticides can impact wildlife indirectly by pesticide drift, runoff into water bodies, or groundwater contamination, while some animals are sprayed directly and others consume plants or prey that have been exposed to pesticides. Pesticide exposure has been linked to cancer, inhibiting reproduction, neurotoxicity, kidney and liver damage, birth defects, and altering an organism’s behaviour, impacting its ability to survive.

The heavy water usage cotton requires heightens the risk of drought, and creates huge amounts of stress on water basins. Producing just one cotton shirt requires 2,700 litres of water, the equivalent of what one person drinks in 2.5 years.The fast fashion industry is the second-largest user of water globally say the UNECE.

The processing of leather also impacts on the environment, with 300kgs of chemicals being added for every 900kg of animal hides tanned.

The speed at which garments are produced also means that more and more clothes are disposed of by consumers, creating a huge amount of textile waste. In the UK alone, 235 million pieces of clothing were sent to landfill in spring 2017, despite its huge effect on the environment.

It is the responsibility of the fast fashion brands that create this environmental disaster to change their production line to include more sustainable practices. If the brands themselves fail to do sufficient in a short enough time, it is then the duty of the government to intervene and more strongly regulate this destructive industry and mitigate the widespread ecocide.

What I suggest is mandatory environmental labels on all clothing. It worked incredibly well with washing machines, fridges and televisions. Thanks to a 1992 EU directive all appliances must be labelled with their energy efficiency. This saw appliances move from ratings of G to D (low efficiency) to today where 98% are classed A++ or A+++. The labels for clothing would also include whether the dyes used were toxic, natural or unnatural and whether the fabrics used are organic or not.

These labels would support consumer choice as well as holding suppliers to account for the environmental impact of what they produce, meaning cutting emissions would be of higher priority.

The most effective impact for increasing sustainability in the clothing industry does however rest with the consumer. Using detergents that work well at lower temperatures, extending the usable life of a garment, purchasing fewer and more durable garments, buying from companies that support sustainable production and recycling old garments into the used clothing market or into other garment and non-garment products all would contribute to increasing sustainability. Consumer awareness about the fate of clothing through its life cycle may be the best hope for sustainability in the fashion industry, we should make our clothes last and wear them until they are worn out.

If you agree please sign and share this petition, many thanks.