what will happen if fast fashion continues to thrive unstopped?
what is fast fashion?
If we haven’t explained it to you later, and you have doubts about what are we talking about, Fast Fashion can be explained as cheap, in-vogue clothing that takes ideas from the catwalk or high-fashion culture and transforms them into articles of clothing in stores dangerously fast to satisfy buyer needs, with no regard to sustainability.
The idea is to get the freshest styles available as quickly as possible conceivable, so customers can eat them up while they are currently at the peak of their fame and afterward, tragically, dispose of them after a couple of wears. It frames a vital piece of the harmful pollution, toxic waste, overproduction, and utilization that has made fast fashion one of the world’s biggest polluters, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
This is only Fast Fashion, you can only imagine what Ultra-Fast Fashion does. Anyway, if you want to know more about fast fashion and its consequences on our society, check the article is fast fashion a social issue?
why is fast fashion bad?
This terrible business practice has a lot of downfalls, the biggest problem with fast fashion is its pollution, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions with its activities, which is a lot.
But there are many other things we can mention about it, here are the biggest problems with fast fashion:
- Overproduction, it creates a lot of clothes very quickly and many of them end up in the landfill without even being worn.
- Air Pollution, producing around 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
- Water pollution, polluting rivers and seas with the lack of care for the environment while creating these garments.
- Soil pollution, especially when the garments end up in landfills, decomposing into harmful chemicals and leaving plastics behind that do not decompose if the garments are made from polyester.
- Consumerism, as it promotes a culture of buy-n-throw clothes as you wish without considering the impact of your actions.
- Worker exploitation, with very low wages, inhuman working conditions, and slavery-like jobs, is partly the reason why these clothes are so cheap.
- Stealing intellectual property, this business practice needs constant new trends and is willing to do anything to get them, like stealing designs from independent artists giving them no credit, this has happened many times before.
This list goes on and on, sadly, and the environmental impacts of fast fashion are very bad, but if you want to learn more in detail about the issues with this business practice, we recommend you read Huffington Post’s article on Fast-Fashion.
what will happen if fast fashion continues to thrive?
There are obvious consequences of this terrible production model continues to thrive, the most important ones being environmental, but also socio-economic impacts that it will have on our world, considering a scenario where it will not be stopped.
Because of the synthetic, non-biodegradable, and many times even toxic materials Fast Fashion garments are made of, the waste accumulated would be such that will occupy the surface of entire countries, a waste that will keep polluting our soil and water, and that will not decompose for several centuries.
Also, the amount of pollution will have a permanent impact on our planet, making future generations of both humans and other species struggle to live on this wonderful planet. You can read more about air pollution and climate change on EPA’s website.
On the socio-economic part of the equation, modern slavery will become a bigger problem, and the low-added value industry will obstruct the fair development of the producing nations making what should be a temporary economic problem into a long-term one, feeding more into an unsustainable industry that will slowly eat the world away.
Overall, we can’t afford to let Fast Fashion continue existing without stopping it, the downside of letting it happen is much bigger than the potential upside of it. We will be discussing next, however, a few ways to stop all of this from happening.
how to stop fast fashion?
Fortunately, there are a few ways we can stop all of this from happening, saving our world. How? You may ask, well, it is not as difficult as you may think at first. Here are the best ways to stop Fast Fashion:
One of the best ways to stop it is to just stop consuming its products, by buying Fast Fashion garments you are feeding the industry, doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing to stop it. Support, however, sustainable fashion, buying ethical and sustainable garments that were made with respect for the environment and the workers producing them.
An even better option is to spread awareness and inform others about the subject and why we need to change our fashion habits, this is crucial to achieving a sustainable fashion industry, as the conscious customer will ditch fast fashion and turn to the sustainable option.
But the best thing to do is to inform yourself first, find ways to live a sustainable lifestyle, and read about the true transcendence of Fast Fashion and the importance of the sustainable fashion industry, luckily, you are doing it right now! By reading this article you are showing that you’re at least somewhat interested in this topic, which is something that 95% of consumers can’t brag about.
To sum it all up, there are many things you can do as a conscious consumer that will have a great impact on our world, the only thing is that you have to start somewhere, but don’t feel overwhelmed about every little thing you could do but haven’t done yet, every little step you take to a sustainable lifestyle is a big difference in our world in the future.
summary
This was what would happen if Fast Fashion continues to thrive unstopped, we hope you have learned the true consequences of this production model and the ways to not let it destroy our world. If you want to learn more on the subject, you’re invited to check out our other articles from the links below, we have quite a few so sit back and relax.
We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, Sustainable Fashion, Ethical Fashion, Slow Fashion or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.
We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!
