Cheap Fashion, But at What Cost?
Kaitlyn Carney
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
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Abstract
Fast fashion is a quick and easy way for ordinary citizens to dress in today’s latest fashion. The process behind the product, however, is anything but glamorous. With its high environmental impacts and low worker wages, fast fashion is an immoral and harmful process that should be rethought or completely eliminated.
Keywords: fast fashion, environmental impacts, low worker wages
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Cheap Fashion, But at What Cost?
Imagine you’re walking down the corridors of a busy shopping mall. All around you are stores selling the latest and greatest of what fashion has to offer. Their shelves are stocked high and their stores are full of eager buyers looking to get their hands on the newest fashion trends. This sight can be seen all over the world in millions of stores, each stocked to capacity with clothing. Where do all of these stores get all of their clothing and how are they able to produce enough clothing for people all around the world to buy? Fast fashion is a quick and easy alternative to buying high-end, expensive articles of clothing. With its relatively low price and high availability, fast fashion is an affordable option for ordinary citizens to feel like they can keep up with the latest high fashion trends. While fast fashion may be an easy option for finding clothes that are new and in style, the negative environmental impacts and low worker wages outweigh its convenience, especially when there are various alternatives.
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As defined by Merriam-Webster, fast fashion is “an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers.” Many familiar brands, such as Forever 21, Primark, and Victoria’s Secret, fall into this category, as well as online retailers such as Fashion Nova, Shein, and Zaful. These brands produce high quantities of multiple clothing styles at surprisingly low costs. H&M, for example, has made less expensive, similar-looking clothing to other, more expensive brands at a fraction of the cost of the high-end one. Fashion designer Max Mara produced a tiger stripe sweater for his 2019 Fashion Week show that costs $940 to purchase. H&M created a similarly patterned sweater that costs buyers just $35 (Eshaghpour, 2019). While fast fashion may seem like a better alternative to more expensive clothing, the environmental impact it has on the planet is astonishing. Fast fashion alone accounts for 92 million metric tons of waste produced each year and the industry consumes 79 trillion liters of water in the same amount of time (Niinimäki et al., 2020). To put this into perspective, the automotive production industry accounts for only 26.3 million metric tons of waste per year (Jaherget, 2016). The constant changing of in-style fashion trends leads these retailers to constantly need to produce and design new clothing daily in order to match the demand. This continuous production causes increased waste production and water consumption. Some may argue that fast fashion is a good alternative to high-end fashion because it allows regular people to stay in style, but style should not be a more important factor than protecting the environment.
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Much of the clothing produced for fast fashion brands is made from polyester or cotton. Polyester is a synthetic material made from oil, while cotton requires much water and pesticides to grow sufficiently (Bick et al., 2018). The production of polyester specifically uses many energy-intensive processes since it is artificially made. It also releases dangerous emissions, including “volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, and acid gases such as hydrogen chloride, all of which can cause or aggravate respiratory disease,” according to “Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry,” author Luz Claudio (2007). Both of these materials, polyester made from oil and cotton, with its high water consumption and pesticide use, add to the environmental impact of the fast fashion industry.
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In addition to textile production, textile dyeing also has adverse effects on the environment. Often, untreated wastewater from the dyeing process is released into local water systems, which adds heavy metals and other toxic substances to the water that can affect the environment, animals, and people (Bick et al., 2018).
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While the production of fast fashion impacts the environment significantly, the disposal of clothing also adds to its vast environmental impacts. According to Rachel Bick, Erika Halsey, and Christine C. Ekenga, 80 billion pieces of new clothing are purchased each year globally, with the United States being the number one consumer of these goods. The United States also accounts for almost 3.8 billion pounds of clothing waste sent to landfills each year (Bick et al., 2018). Not only is there already a significant amount of waste produced by the production of fast fashion clothing, but there is also additional waste when these products are sent to landfills. Also, a majority of this clothing is made from polyester. Since this material is synthetic and oil-based, it takes much longer, upwards of 200 years, for it to break down and decompose than a more natural fiber like cotton, which only takes about five months, would (How Long, 2021). This only adds to the waste produced by fast fashion.
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Other important factors in the production of fast fashion are the workers who are producing the textiles and finished clothing themselves. Often, fast fashion is sold at a low retail price. One has to ask themselves the question, “If I’m buying this article of clothing at a low price, how much did it cost to produce?” This is where the issue of low worker wages arises. Many fast fashion brands move their production to offshore production companies in order to cut the costs of producing their clothing. While this is beneficial for consumers as they are able to buy affordable clothing, it is not good for the workers who are paid little money to work in labor-intensive, dangerous positions. According to garmetworkcenter.org, many workers are not paid a general minimum wage and are instead paid two to six cents per piece of clothing they produce (2021). Most workers work 60-70 hours per week and make approximately $300. Workers also do not receive benefits or overtime pay for any additional work they do. While some may argue that fast fashion creates jobs for these workers, if the workers do not make enough money to support themselves or their families, their job is not serving its purpose. If more people knew of the horrid conditions these clothes are made in, fewer people would be as willing to purchase these items.
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In addition to low worker wages, the conditions of the production process are also deplorable. Often, production is based in low to middle-income countries where worker safety is not as much of a priority as it is in the United States. Because of this, workers are often put into dangerous, sometimes deadly situations. Hazards that these workers face include “respiratory hazards due to poor ventilation such as cotton dust and synthetic air particulates, and musculoskeletal hazards from repetitive motion tasks,” as well as “debilitating and life-threatening conditions such as lung disease and cancer, damage to endocrine function, adverse reproductive and fetal outcomes, accidental injuries, overuse injuries and death” (Bick et al., 2018). In the United States and the United Kingdom, these same working conditions lead to the formation of textile labor unions, but workers are expected to deal with these conditions in these low-income countries. A specific example of low-income workers being put in high-risk situations is the 2013 Rana Plaza Factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed over 1,000 workers. The building the workers were made to work in was poorly maintained and unsound for apparel production, leading to the ultimate collapse (Bolle, 2014). Examples like this are another reason why the fast fashion industry is unnecessary and dangerous.
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With so many negatives surrounding fast fashion, alternatives need to be found in order to offset its impacts. Fortunately, there are many alternatives to buying fast fashion. One of the easiest ways of doing this is by thrift or second-hand shopping. A thrift shop, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “a shop that sells secondhand articles and especially clothes and is often run for charitable purposes.” By donating and shopping at pre-owned goods stores, the consumer takes the need for fast fashion away. There is no need to produce more cheap clothes when consumers can already find good quality clothing for low prices at thrift stores. Donating to these businesses also decreases the amount of waste produced by throwing clothes away into a landfill. Thrift shopping acts as a way of recycling clothes and also gives new life to old textiles that another person may not want or need any longer. Also, the aspect of individuality is brought on by thrift shopping as there is typically only one specific piece of clothing available to the customers. This allows the consumer to have unique and memorable pieces of clothing that they would not be able to find in a regular retail store. Consumers get to enjoy a day of shopping, just like they would at a retail store, without the added negative environmental impacts and low worker wages associated with fast fashion; and it is usually cheaper. While some people may have a negative opinion of buying pre-owned clothing, thrift stores will often acquire new clothing that a person never took the tags off of and decided to donate. In this instance, buyers would be getting brand-new, off-the-rack clothing from brand-name stores at a much lower cost. Sourcing clothing from thrift or secondhand stores not only helps to cut down on the negative factors of creating new clothing, but it also helps people save money. There are also other alternatives for people who do not prefer to purchase their clothes from a thrift shop.
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Another option for avoiding fast fashion is to buy more expensive, higher-quality clothing that will last a longer amount of time. Due to the fast pace nature of producing and selling fast fashion, not as much attention is paid to the quality of the clothing being made. This can lead to clothes getting worn out much quicker than clothes that were made with higher quality. Because of this, people will buy more articles of clothing from fast fashion brands since the ones they have wear out so quickly, which adds to the high demand for the products. By buying higher quality, sometimes more expensive clothing, consumers will not have to buy as many articles of clothing as often as they would have to with the lower-quality clothes produced by fast fashion, which helps to reduce the environmental impact of producing any type of clothing. Buying from sustainable brands also goes hand in hand with buying better quality clothes. Brands such as Patagonia and Levi use sustainable means of producing and recycling the clothing they produce in order to decrease their environmental impacts (35 ethical & sustainable clothing brands, (2019).
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Making or buying hand-made clothing is also an alternative to buying fast fashion. While making clothing may not be something that everyone knows how to do, there are many options available to people in order to learn how to make their clothes. Online sites such as YouTube and Pinterest have easy-to-follow tutorials on making different articles of clothing, or there are classes available that will teach participants how to create their own clothes. If a person does not have the time or skill to make their own clothes, there are also many small businesses and independent creators that produce hand-made clothing for others to buy. This not only helps to lessen the impact that fast fashion has on the environment, but it also allows consumers to help support a small or local designer and their business.
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Hiding behind the beautiful designs and garments of the fashion industry lies the ugly truth behind fast fashion. While many people shop at these brands, few realize the actual impact these brands’ clothes have on the environment, and the low wages workers are being paid to produce them. More mainstream attention needs to be directed to these issues in order to make changes in the situation and to help buyers know what is really going on behind the clothes they are wearing. It is a consumer’s right to know how a product they are buying was made and the wages that the workers who made the product are making. Consuming clothing through thrift shopping and buying from more sustainable brands will help decrease the need for fast fashion and decrease the environmental impact that producing mass quantities of clothes. With so many advances in today’s society, fashion should not be overlooked when it comes to creating high-quality clothes at a low price. Due to its high environmental impacts and low worker wages, fast fashion is an unnecessary and dangerous industry that can be overcome by thrift shopping and sourcing sustainable clothing.
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References
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