Fast fashion and why to avoid it
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Have you ever performed that classic rom-com cliché of standing in front of your crammed wardrobe, lamenting that you have nothing to wear? Dear reader, do not be ashamed. It is not your fault.
The fashion industry has a vested interest in putting you in this position, and does so in a variety of ways. The one I’m interested in is “fast fashion” – the mass production of cheap, on-trend clothing that dates quickly and wears out even quicker.
Why does it matter? Globally, the textile industry is one of the five largest contributors to carbon emissions. Australians are, per capita, the second-highest consumers of textiles.
“Consumers” is the operative word here. Fast fashion is designed to move quickly, not just through the design, production and retail process, but into the discard pile as well. It’s not meant to be cherished, it’s meant to be used up. Fast fashion convinces us we’re saving money, when it actually costs more to buy a $20 top that lasts for five wearings before it stretches or pills or dates, than to buy an $120 top that lasts for fifty wearings and never goes out of style.
Clothes generate emissions at every stage of their life. Growing the cotton, synthesising the polyester. Spinning, weaving, dyeing, sewing, packaging, transporting, displaying – and you haven’t even got the garment home yet.
Once you do, there’s washing, stain-soaking, ironing, dry-cleaning. Some of those things are hard to avoid, but I would argue that ironing is not one of them (my household irons so rarely that my daughter couldn’t identify an ironing board at the age of four, which I counted as a win for feminism as well as the environment).
Then there’s the discard stage. Fast fashion doesn’t only cram our wardrobes with unwearable clothes, it crams landfill with waste and our environment with pollution and carbon emissions.
But just as the clothing you wear creates emissions at every stage, you can help avoid those emissions at every stage as well. Here are some ideas:-
Buy garments or furnishings made from recycled textiles.
It’s becoming easier to find these, and “recycled fabric” is a selling point. Companies in Australia selling clothing that uses some component of recycled fabric – or even plastic – include Kathmandu, Nobody Denim, P.E. Nation and Vege Threads.
Think about quality when you buy.
You can Google information on how to identify good quality in fabric and finished garments. Think you can’t afford quality? Remember that in the long run, a high-quality garment usually costs less per wearing than a cheaper one, so if you save up your clothing budget until you can afford that statement piece, you’ll be ahead.
Or…
Buy secondhand from op shops or The Green Shed.
Since 2011, The Green Shed has diverted over 60,000 tonnes of materials away from landfill and into a productive second life, avoiding over 250,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. Their carbon savings offset more than half of total ACT emissions from waste each year.
Canberra’s op shops include the Salvos, the Red Cross, St Vincent de Paul, and Another Chance. I love op shopping and almost everything I wear is second-hand. There are some really exciting specialists coming out too, like Roundabout who focus on kids and baby clothes.
And of course many of these will take your donated clothing as well, but don’t be thoughtless about this – if you wouldn’t offer it to a friend, it’s not good enough to donate. Charities spend millions of dollars a year sending unusable donations to landfill, and a lot of that is fast fashion.
Which brings us to rags and fabric.
Koomarri will take rags on a periodic basis – check before donating (or your op shop might have an arrangement with them direct). Fashion retailer H & M takes old clothing, underwear and ripped tights. Sheridan Manuka take sheets and towels. I use a service these days call Upparel. For a fee, they will come to my house and take a box of old clothes and recycle it back into fibres.
If you ever want to know how to recycle something, check out the ACT Government’s A-Z Recyclopedia. We are working on better ways to recycle and avoid waste. Recently in the Assembly, we passed a motion by Ms Orr for the ACT Government to work with the local textile sector on ways to reuse and recycle textiles. This will make jobs as well as help the environment and it will be a great complement to the circular economy work already under way.
