Though the fashion industry has become one of the most popular industries but this industry has equally contributed in causing pollution and harm to the environment. If proper care is not taken then this can have disastrous consequences for the environment. The fashion industry emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined. So, in this article we would discuss the various ways how fashion industry affects the environment after that we will look at how we can tackle these issues and at last we talk about sustainable fashion and how this has a wide scope in future.
So, lets discuss about how fashion industry pollutes the environment. As demand for garments is growing around the world, the production is continuously rising and this puts a lot of pressure on the environment. As compared to the year 2000 people bought 60% more garments in 2014 and fashion industry contributes to 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions and also pollutes the rivers and the dries up the water resources. This data provides us insight into how the fashion industry pollutes the environment. The fashion industry uses water in very huge amounts so a lot of waste water is produced during the preparation of garments it is estimated that 20% of the global waste water is produced by the fashion industry. Fashion industry has a lot of demand for cotton, cotton farming contributes for 24% of the insecticides and 11% of the pesticides and these chemicals are very harmful for the environment and these chemicals when they penetrate into water then they also harm the ground table. According to research 20 thousand litre of water is required to produce one kilogram of cotton which is required to manufacture just a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Now let us discuss the various ways and methods in which we can reduce the waste from the fashion industry.
First of all there should be some awareness among the consumers that it is not an easy task to produce garments, a lot of resources are put into producing garments so consumers should be made aware that they should not buy unnecessarily though this will cause a little harm to the brands but this is a very important step that is required because we cannot think only about ourselves we should also think about nature. The other step that can be taken is to promote recycling because if we recycle in a proper manner than this can reduce waste from fashion industry in a very significant amount using recycled cotton saves 20 thousand litre of water per kilogram so this recycling of cotton can prove to be a very effective strategy. The other important thing or we can say the trend that is emerging these days is used clothing. The United States of America is the largest exporter of second hand clothing. It exports over a billion pounds of used clothing every year. And what is interesting to note here is that around 70% of the worlds population uses second hand clothing, this may appear to be an astonishing fact but its true. But still fashion industry contributes a lot in environmental waste so this is because of reasons like this according to a survey consumers in the United Kingdom have an estimated $46.7 billion of unworn clothes in their closets. So we need to address these kind of issues very carefully so that we move towards sustainable development and contribution of fashion industry is lowered in various kinds of environmental wastes. Now lets move to the term Sustainable Fashion.
Sustainable fashion is a movement and process of fostering change to fashion products and fashion system towards greater ecological integrity. It is not concerned only about fashion textiles or products but addressing the whole system of fashion. But here we would discuss about fashion textiles and some other products. So sustainable fashion is system of fashion in which various types of clothes, shoes and accessories are manufactured and marketed in the most sustainable manner. When it comes to practice it means improving the life-cycle of the product and ensuring efficient and careful use of natural resources like water, land, soil, animals, plants, etc. and selecting renewable resources of energy like wind, solar etc. at every stage and maximizing repair, remake, reuse and recycling of the product. From a socio-economic perspective, all stakeholders should work to improve present working conditions for workers on the field, in the factories, transportation chain, and stores, by aligning with good ethics, best practice and international codes of conduct. In addition, fashion companies should contribute to encourage more sustainable consumption patterns, caring and washing practices, and overall attitudes towards fashion. So these are all the ways in which we can move towards more sustainable fashion and make environment more clean and we can also reduce the effect of fashion waste on the environment.
- Richan
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