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Concept
Environmental impact of fashion
Summary
The fashion industry, particularly manufacture and use of apparel and footwear, is a significant driver of greenhouse gas emissions and plastic pollution. The rapid growth of fast fashion has led to around 80 billion items of clothing being consumed annually, with a large number going to landfill.
Less than one percent of clothing is recycled to make new clothes. The industry produces an estimated 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The production and distribution of the crops, fibers, and garments used in fashion all contribute to differing forms of environmental pollution, including water, air, and soil degradation. The textile industry is the second greatest polluter of local freshwater in the world, and is culpable for roughly one-fifth of all industrial water pollution. Some of the main factors that contribute to this industrial caused pollution are the vast overproduction of fashion items, the use of synthetic fibers, the agriculture pollution of fashion crops, and the proliferation of microfibers across global water sources.
Efforts have been made by some retailers and consumers to promote sustainable fashion practices, such as reducing waste, and improving energy and water efficiency.
Fast fashion
Fast fashion is defined as "an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers." The amount of new garments bought by Americans has tripled since the 1960s. Globalization has encouraged the rapid growth of the fast fashion industry. Global retail sales of apparel in 2019 reached 1.9 trillion U.S dollars, a new high – this number is expected to double to three trillion U.S. dollars by the year 2030. The world consumes more than 80 billion items of clothing annually.
One concern with fast fashion is the clothes waste it produces. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 15.1 million tons of textile clothing waste was produced in 2013 alone. In the United States, 64.5% of textile waste is discarded in landfills, 19.
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