Fast Fashion and Climate Change

For my DLI Climate Change course we were asked to make a climate friendly New Year’s Resolution. For mine, I chose to abandon fast fashion and online shopping. Most people now rely heavily on online shopping when in reality, you get things faster by just going in store. Fast fashion refers to cheap clothing that is mass produced and trendy, this includes brands like H&M, Zara, Shein, Brandy Melville, and many more. To me, being obsessed with trends is not cool, you should build your closet off of good basics and things you like, not things other people like. 

The biggest problem is that these clothes are cheap for a reason, do the people buying them ever stop to wonder, who makes them and in what conditions?  At some point brands you would never think would be guilty of exploiting workers have placed people in terrible working conditions and underpaid them in order to produce cheap clothes. Fast fashion extends beyond the environment and into the exploitation of human beings. 

Out of the 100 billion tons of clothing items produced every year, 92 billion tons end up in a landfill. It is both an ethical issue and an environmental issue. With the media's encouragement of overconsumption through rapidly changing fashion trends, fast fashion has become a major environmental issue in our world. Evidence, research, and statistics point to the fact that there is a severe problem, however it is not one that comes without a solution. Everyone can play their part in the resolution. 

So here are ways you can help:

Buy less - next time you think about buying something, ask yourself if you really need it. 

But next time you need to buy something, turn away from brands like Nike, Hollister, and Gap. And look toward brands like Patagonia, Pact, and Reformation.

Thrift - Donate the clothes you don’t need anymore and shop for secondhand clothes!

Fix your own clothes - If something has a hole in it, sew it up yourself.

Buy better - Buy better quality clothes that will last you a lifetime.