After energy derived from fossil fuels – oil – the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world. So it says the United Nations: large-scale textile production generates 10% of all carbon emissions on the planet (which according to the UN recorded new heights last year). That is to say fashion pollutes “more than all international flights and sea-going ships.”
In addition, the fashion industry squanders 20% of the water and it also pollutes it: a single bluejean needs 2,000 gallons, and the process of dyeing clothes on an industrial scale also gives fashion second place among the world’s water pollutants.
Every time a batch of clothes made of polyester, acrylic and cotton mixed with polyester –the most common synthetic fabrics in mass consumption clothes– is washed in the washing machine, at least 700,000 microplastic fibres are released to end up in the oceans, according to a study by Plymouth University.
That figure multiplied by all the private and industrial washing machines in the world, the results are outrageous. The U.N. estimates that half a million tons of microplastics are thrown into the sea every year just for washing clothes.
In addition, the equivalent of a garbage truck full of textiles is landfilled or burned every second, according to the UN.
The UN Environmental Assembly and environmental organizations call on for changing consumption patterns. This must be done “dadically,” the UN press release states, “to guarantee the survival of the planet.”
These patterns are not only found compulsive purchases of textile products, but also in the type of garments that are consumed. The ones produced in the so-called “fast fashion” are the ones that contribute the most to pollution: these are industries that produce articles of low quality, with a very short useful life, which encourages greater consumption.
The UN publication quotes Patsy Perry, professor of fashion marketing at the University of Manchester: ” Most fashion retailers now are doing something about sustainability and have some initiatives focused on reducing fashion’s negative impact on the environment. However, there is still a fundamental problem with the fast fashion business model where revenues are based on selling more products, and therefore retailers must constantly offer new collections. It would be unrealistic to expect consumers to stop shopping on a large scale, so going forward, I would expect to see more development and wider adoption of more sustainable production methods such as waterless dyeing, using waste as a raw material, and development of innovative solutions to the textile waste problem.”
Actions
On April 23, 2013, Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza collapsed, killing 1,138 people who worked there in denigrating conditions, making textiles for some 30 international brands –many from the fast fashions culture. This tragedy exposed the exploitation of workers in the fashion industry and even the use of child labor.
That is why the non-governmental organization Fashion Revolution was born, with divisions around the world, to promote “a fashion industry values people, the environment, creativity and profit in equal measure.” In the organization there are fashion industry workers and consumers. In their ten-point manifesto, in addition to the welfare of workers, they include safeguarding the planet’s environment and biodiversity and promoting a circular economy that recycles and does not waste.
Every April for the anniversary of the Rana Plaza tragedy, Fashion Revolution launches the Fashion Revolution Week, with the campaign asking “who made my clothes?”. (#whomademyclothes), in order to urge brands and producers to respond with another label, #Imadeyourclothes (I made your clothes), to “demonstrate transparency in their supply chain.” In 2020 they will be campaigning from 20 to 26 April.
Fashion Revolution has offices in Costa Rica, Salvador, Honduras, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
In addition to taking action for sustainable textile production, the promotion of donating, exchanging and consuming second-hand clothing contributes to reducing the polluting impact of the fashion industry on the planet.
A report by Chilean Radio UC this year says Chile is the largest consumer of fast fashion in Latin America. This country is precisely the official host of this COP25 Climate Summit.
In 2014, a group of residents of Chile’s Fourth Region – to the north – created Arropa Chile: members of this project collect disused clothes from houses. They donate part of it to people with fewer resources in mobile stores, and they transform other part of this clothes into new products – especially handbags – which women who are the heads of vulnerable households make by hand. They sell these products under the principles of fair trade. Additionally, instead of discarding what is left over, they create a material that they mix “with an organic binder” that can be used “as a cladding, insulation or material for creating furniture.”
On the other hand, in Madrid, a retired man started combining the recycling of textile garments with sowing. EFE Verde reported on this in their special coverage of the COP25, which is taking place in the Spanish capital. In Malasaña, an emblematic bohemian neighborhood in the center of Madrid, this retired man began sowing on his own in the face of Madrid City Council’s refusal, the report says, to recondition a vertical garden in one of the area’s central squares. He gathers clothes, goes out at night, turns the blue jeans and shoes -about 200 pairs now- into pots for plants and flowers that hang from walls, fences and posts.
The man doesn’t want to appear in this news report, but he says he likes to be called “the clandestine gardener”.
The wish of this man, the EFE Verde reporter says, is that his idea extends to other cities in Spain.