Key Drivers

Fast Fashion

With the decline in price more clothing is being produced than ever before.
In fact 400% more clothing is created than 20 years ago and 80 billion garments are produced every year. For reference there are only 7 billion people in the world.
This rise in production has brought with it lower quality garments.
On average people wear a singleitem of clothing only 7 times before getting rid of it. One because they have more options than ever but also because clothing does not last as long any more.

Chemicals are a huge part of the textile industry they are used in making fibers, bleaching, and dyeing fabrics. Most of these chemicals stay in our clothes when we order them which not only presents a danger to our earth but our own personal health as well.
There are currently 11 chemicals identified that contain toxins, carcinogens, and horomone disruptors which are highly toxic to our bodies. These things are not banned though. This means people should keep washing their clothing at least once before their first wear.
63% of items tested from major brands were found to contain these hazardous materials.
In the cotton farming industry there is a high use of chemicals. People who work in this industry can end up catching diseases and die prematurely.

The apparel industry accounts for around 10% of global carbon emissions.
The fashion industry generates a lot of greenhouse gases due to the energy used during production, manufacturing, and transportation.
Synthetic fibers (polyester, acrylic, nylon, etc) used in most of our clothing are made from fossil fuels making production much more energy-intensive than with natural fibers.
Most of our clothing is made in China, Bangladesh, or India which our countries powered by coal. This is the dirtiest type of energy in terms of carbon emission.
70 million oil barrels are used every year to product polyester.
Carbon emissions increase by 400% when we wear a garment 5 times rather than 50 times.

Most fashion companies are only paying people in countries such as China, Bangladesh, and India minimum wage. The minimum wage usually represents about half to a fifth of a living wage. So in actuality these companies are usually paying 5x less tha what a person actually need to live with diginity.
Along with the low salaries the amount of hours worked is very high. Workers are often made to work 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week. If someone refused overtime they are likely to be fired and replaced.
Health and safety is also a major concern. Employees work regularly with no ventilation, breath in toxic substances, inhale fibers, and much more. Many workers also face physical and verbal abuse if they do not reach their daily target.
Child labor is another huge problem. In South India, for example 120,000 girls work under the Sumangali scheme. This is a practice that sends young girls from poor families to work in textile families for 3-5 years in exchange for a basic wage and a lump sum payment at the end to pay for their dowry.
There are over 40 million garment workers in these horrible conditions.

Another large impact comes from microfiber pollution. Every time we wash synthetic garments such as polyester, nylon, etc about 700 indivdual microfibers are released into the water making their way to the ocean. These microbes are ingested by small aquatic organism, which are eaten by small fish, which are then eaten by bigger fish, in turn introducing plastic into our foodchain. There are also studies that stay these micro fibers can be released into the air just by wearing them.

With clothing being so disposable an average westen family in the western hemisphere throws away an average of 66 IBs of clothing each year with only 15% recycled or donated.
The rest is thrown into a landfill or incenerated.
The equivalent of 1 garbage truck of textiles is wasted every second.

In the countries where these textiles are produced, untreated toxic wastewaters from textiles factories are dumped directly into rivers.
This waste water contains toxins such as lead, arsenic, mercury, and others. This is extremely harmful to the aquatic life and the health of millions of people located near these river banks.
The contamination also flows out to the sea and reachers other parts of the world was well.
Another source of this water contamination is the use of fertilizers for cotton production, which heavily pollutes runoff water and evaporation waters.
Everyday 22,000 liter of toxic waste is dumped into rivers by tanneries in Bangladesh.

Not only is water pollution a problem but so is water consumption. A Huge quantity of fresh water is used for dyeing and finishing process for all of our clothes. For reference it can take up to 200 tons of freshwater per ton of dyed fabric.
When cotton is used it can take up to 20,000 litters of water to produce 1kg of cotton. This puts tremendous strain on the enviroment and has dramatic ecological impact.
The desertification of the Aral Sea where cotton production once happened has entirly drained the water.
Not so fun fact 85% of the daily needs in water of the entire population of India would be covered by the water used to grow cotton in the country. 100 million Indians do not have access to drinking water.

Every year thousands of acres of endangered and ancient forests are cut down and replaced by plantations of trees used to make wood based fabrics such as rayon, viscose, and modal.
Each year 70 million trees are cut down to make our clothes.
30% of rayon and viscose comes from endangered and ancient forests.

The fashion industry has some truly major sustainability problems in its midst. By 2030, it is predicted that the industry’s water consumption will grow by 50 percent to 118 billion cubic meters (or 31.17 trillion gallons), its carbon footprint will increase to 2,791 million tons and the amount of waste it creates will hit 148 million tons.