Fast Fashion: A Race to the Landfill
Nearly every one of the 7+ billion people on earth need clothes to wear every day (not to mention my dogs on Halloween). I don’t know about you, but I have clothes to wear while I sleep, a robe to wear while I get ready, clothes to wear to work, clothes to wear on the weekend, clothes to wear for nice events, business clothes, workout clothes, church clothes, party clothes, … you get the idea. And those are just clothes for one season of weather! Because clothes are a universal touchstone, there are hundreds of aspects of the clothing industry to talk about, from self-expression to the morality of clothing factory conditions. Today we’re going to focus on just one: the issue of what happens to clothes when you’re done wearing them. Do you throw them away? Do you donate them to a thrift store? Do you sell them online? Give them away as a hand-me-down? Do you mend holes and tears or just trash the garment? If you’re like me, you probably do some combination of the above.
I would argue that the majority of clothes people wear in America fall under the umbrella of “fast fashion.” You know the type - things you can pick up from Target, Walmart, Forever 21, H&M, and most of the other stores in malls. The idea of fast fashion is to be cheap and cheaply made- which usually means you can get a few months of wear out of a garment before it starts to fall apart. Then you can trash the item and replace it with another one. Some people can’t afford to purchase higher-quality clothes that are made to last, and some just prefer to have a variety of clothes rather than fewer, nicer pieces. I’ve never been a fan of “capsule wardrobes” - I get bored wearing the same things over and over again. But where does that leave me? I can’t afford to just keep buying new, high-quality clothes, and even if I could I would need to retain a contractor to endlessly renovate my closet. Personally, I like a mix of both high quality staples and inexpensive items to mix things up, but that means that I need to get rid of clothes on a regular basis. I think my attitude is pretty typical, especially in America, so now let’s multiply it across millions or billions of people. You can start to imagine the mountains of clothes that must get thrown out every day. And it’s not just our imagination: PBS reports that Americans throw away 13 million tons of textiles every year. Divide that by the population, and you get 79.46 pounds of clothes PER PERSON, PER YEAR in America. If you were the one personally placing 79 pounds of unwanted clothes into your city’s landfill, I bet you’d rethink your buying habits.
You probably already know that if we’re talking about sending things to the landfill on an environmental website, the landfill is going to be one of the bad guys. For a refresher on why that is, check out my companion article about landfills. Now let’s circle back to fashion.
Your clothes present an opportunity for lessening waste both when you bring them into your house and when you send them back out. Just like you can choose not to bring single use grocery bags into your home by using reusable bags, you can choose not to bring clothes into your home that you know have a fast pass to the landfill. This can mean a few different things. You can choose to buy items that are made from already recycled materials. You can choose to buy items that are high-quality and will live a long life, either in your closet or in someone else’s. You can choose to buy fewer pieces of clothes altogether. I sometimes get a hankering for a new shirt or swimsuit from Target, but I try to wait a few days and then only buy the item if it’s still on my mind when it’s not sitting right in front of me. I won’t say whether that strategy is more out of concern for my wallet or my convictions, but in the end it benefits both. Another option is to buy used clothes, whether they’re from a local thrift store or a high-end resale sight like The RealReal. No matter how much money you’re looking to spend or what quality you want, the bottom line is that you’re selecting a garment that’s already out in the world and giving it a new life, instead of participating in the cycle of single-use. You could also choose to alter a garment you have and make it into something new, or slap some patches or new buttons onto a thrift store jacket. There are nearly endless options for keeping your wardrobe exciting, personalized, and in your budget, as long as you are willing to put a little thought or effort in. To start you off, I’ve even provided a list of brands at the end of this article that use recycled materials, are carbon-neutral, or are otherwise taking steps to change the fashion industry for the better.
Pivoting to what clothes you’re sending out of your home, there are a lot of parallels to the last paragraph. You can donate old clothes to thrift stores, or trade some pieces out with your friends, coworkers, or neighbors. You can cut up old sweaters and use them as cloths to wash your dishes or clean your car. Cut a blouse into bandanas or scarves. Reuse scarves to wrap gifts in. An old dress shirt equals a new smock. You can pull longer lives out of many of the clothes you’re done wearing. Or make some money off your clothes by selling them through eBay or a dedicated clothing resale site! Sometimes you even have the option to genuinely recycle old clothes. For example, H&M runs a clothing recycling program that accepts old clothes you might have otherwise thrown away, breaks them down into fibers and materials, and uses them to make new clothes! You even get a discount in-store if you bring in clothes to recycle. Here’s some more food for thought: start thinking of the fabrics in your home as textiles with opportunity. The fabric from your old curtains could be new pillow covers or a bed skirt or a skirt skirt. Don’t let The Man tell you that your dress is only a dress! Stick it to him and turn that dress into an apron. Wear it when you throw a party so you can flaunt it right in his patriarchal face. Rock ‘n roll man.
That’s the good news and the bad news. The good news is that you have some viable options if you want your wardrobe to be less wasteful! The bad news is that it’s going to take a conscious effort from you to change your habits and shopping patterns. And now here’s some news that’s more like tea. Piping, scalding, simmering tea. You and the clothes that you throw away are not responsible for the global climate crisis. You are not responsible for the fact that humans create garbage and that garbage these days produces methane. You should not be punished for participating in the society you grew up in. If every single person on earth stopped buying and trashing fast fashion, that would be incredible! It would make a big difference in the amount of textiles that are thrown away, not to mention the pollution that’s created by factories or the water that’s used in dyeing processes. But do you know what would be even better? National- and global-scale changes in industries. I believe that individuals have a responsibility to make better choices when they are able to, which can certainly include making an effort to reduce the waste they produce. I also believe that to achieve the change we need, we need to do much more than you and I can do on our own. So keep writing to your elected officials and calling for better environmental regulation, keep writing to brands asking them to provide more environmentally friendly options, and keep using the only language big companies understand: money. Spend your money on brands that echo your values. Give companies a monetary incentive to do better and become greener. They say that actions speak louder than words, and one of the actions that speaks with a bullhorn is spending.
Go forth, Scouts. Continue to educate yourself and to make choices that better align with your values. Continue to put your money where your mouth is, because that’s one of the most powerful statements us consumers can make. And lastly, take responsibility for your actions, but don’t accept the weight of the world’s problems on your own shoulders. Today we can take action as consumers and citizens, but we’re preparing to one day take action as talking heads and regulators and businesspeople. And hey, if you don’t have a talking head outfit, check out the (environmentally-friendly) brands below.
Reformation https://www.thereformation.com/
Outerknown https://www.outerknown.com/
Patagonia https://www.patagonia.com/home/
thredUP https://www.thredup.com/
Outdoor Voices https://www.outdoorvoices.com/
United By Blue https://unitedbyblue.com/
Alternative Apparel https://www.alternativeapparel.com/
Sèzane https://www.sezane.com/us
Eileen Fisher https://www.eileenfisher.com/
Mara Hoffman https://marahoffman.com/
Whimsy + Row https://whimsyandrow.com/
Tonlé https://tonle.com/
H&M Conscious https://www2.hm.com/en_us/free-form-campaigns/conscious-exclusive-2020.html
Athleta https://athleta.gap.com/
Manduka https://www.manduka.com/
Aerie Real Good Swim https://www.ae.com/us/en/x/aerie/swimsuits/real-good-swim?menu=cat4840006&pagetype=shp
Here are the websites and resources I consulted before writing this article. If this topic interests you, I encourage you to follow the links below! There are lots more topics around fashion to dive into.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/fashion/g9255699/sustainable-eco-green-clothing-brands/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/books/review/how-fast-fashion-is-destroying-the-planet.html
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/putting-brakes-fast-fashion
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7.pdf
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/clothing/g27154605/sustainable-fashion-clothing/
https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/fair-trade-clothing
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/putting-brakes-fast-fashion
