Too Much Fashion Warms the Planet

Just when one of Nobel Prizes in Economy was given to William Nordhaus, who studies the economics of climate change and has produced the first quantitative modelling on the relationship between climate and economy… Another piece of news epitomising that the Prize went to the correct address and why such studies are important.

The fashion industry, without a doubt, is one the biggest culprits of greenhouse gas emissions that overheat our planet. And for the young people, fast fashion is almost like a drug.

Fast fashion may be called the “fast food” of the fashion industry. This is a model where the newest, the trendiest models made for pushing consumers to consume more are offered with reasonable price tags.

Fast fashion chains now prepare not just five, but between eight and 24 collections per year. They host fewer numbers and fewer sizes of each model, creating a “this can be sold out, so I must buy” sensation. In return, we go shopping more, visit more stores, buy more, and discard more. Because we simply want to make room for newer clothes, or better put, the latest trend.

Wear, discard, and buy new

By discarding brand new clothes just because they are “last year’s colour”, we now have a discarded textiles problem. Not only due to the amount of waste, but also due to the fibre ligaments flowing into the water systems as a result of washing.

The UK has an epidemic of clothes consumption. While the fashion industry encourages more and more consumption, the country consumes more textiles than any other European countries. Although the fashion industry brings about 28 million sterling benefit to the country’s economy, they fear that its share in the country’s total impact on global warming might raise to 25 percent. They are now working on a report that could include a call for the fashion industry to create less pollution, a demand for a longer life for garments and a ban on dumping clothes in a landfill.

Hopefully, this initiative may set an example for other countries as well.