The Fashion iIndustry is Destroying the Environment
In recent years, many international organizations took environmental problems more and more seriously. The Paris Agreement is an agreement built upon the Convention and forces all nations in a common cause to combat climate change. One obvious thing is that there is a positive correlation between carbon emission and economic development. It results in official governments can’t make Carbon-Cutting Target promises to the public. Carbon emission is related to our diversified industries, such as the airline business, the auto industry, and even though the fashion industry. The fashion industry is doing or plans to do some changes to be more environment-friendly.
Clothing is people's essential, but fast fashion makes the clothing far beyond the essential. Fast fashion makes clothes more affordable, so people use the same disposable income to buy more clothes. However, producing mass clothes will have bad influences on the environment, for instance, water pollution and carbon emission. 'The fashion industry produces 10% of all humanity's carbon emissions, is the second-largest consumer of the world's water supply, and pollutes the water with microplastics,' Business Insider says(Mcfall-Johnson 2019). As the topic of environmental protection becomes more and more hit, some famous company launches environment-friendly products. Several years ago, Adidas released a sneaker made from a marine litter whose inside meaning is much more attractive than its look. It is a good sign that a well-known company starts to put sustainable development in an important place, and other competitors will follow up to grab market share. When the market is full of various sneakers with similar materials, there is an increasing probability of choosing these sneakers which relieves the environmental burden.
Until now, the fashion industry has become mature, therefore most people will talk to others about fashion-related topics or look over fashion magazines in their spare time. In Europe, the mainland which is full of fashion information, The fashion companies went from an average of two offerings in 2000 to five in 2011. The fast-increasing supply reflects a growing market, especially for fast fashion. The iconic brand, ZARA, even though the brand is exposed to copy from other High-Fashion brand and be charged a lot, their labors are low-paid and clothes have below-average quality, people are still high on buying its products. Compared to the situation in 2000, people bought 60% more garments in 2014 and kept half in the closet. The clothing thrown away will be in the dump and later be burned or dumped in a landfill. Every year about 85% of texture is dumped in a landfill which is equivalent to the size of Sydney Harbor. To solve the problem, people come up with new ideas to relieve the environmental burden. In Europe, people build clothing libraries to provide a remedy for mass consumption. From consumer psychology, people usually like to fill their closets with new clothing. Rental clothing will meet consumers’ needs within the budget. Some of them may think about sanitation problems. After previous consumers returned the clothes, staff in the clothing library start to deeply clean and sterilize the apparel. With the concept of environment protection enhancing, emerging industries like clothing libraries may become thriving.
Not only do clothing producers pay attention to sustainable development, but fashion magazines start to appeal to using environmental protection materials to produce clothes. This act may influence a part of fashion lovers to think about whether they need to replace their clothes so frequently.
All in all, the fashion industry has a continuously bad influence on the environment. As the presentation of kinds of pollution problems, the fashion industry should make some changes to decrease the harm to the earth and also consumers need to change their consumption habits to adopt the trend.
Reference:
- McFall-Johnsen, Morgan. “The Fashion Industry Emits More Carbon than International Flights and Maritime Shipping Combined. Here Are the Biggest Ways It Impacts thePlanet.” Business Insider Australia. Business Insider Australia, October 17, 2019.https://www.businessinsider.com.au/fast-fashion-environmental-impact-pollution-emissions-waste-water-2019-10.
