Fast Fashion: When we think about fashion, we think about glamorous, beautiful models strutting down catwalks in New York, Milan and London. We think about luxurious silks for special occasions, and cozy, knitted jumpers for cold, winter nights. But while there are so many tempting dresses, skirts and scarves to choose from and to buy whenever and wherever we want, there is a frightening reality behind such beauty. And that is the reality of fast fashion, with its detrimental impacts on our planet.
Fast fashion is a business strategy that aims to reduce purchasing processes. Manufacturers produce clothes in less time, in order to meet customer demand and to be able to ship out clothes to shops as quickly as possible. The result? Too many clothes get made in a short amount of time with new trends simply replacing old ones from season to season – leading to clothes ending up in landfills, being burnt or buried in order to get rid of their waste.
(BBC.com)
Sounds scary, right? But that’s not all – £140 million pounds of clothes are thrown away every year in the United Kingdom, as customers buy too much over a short period and then dump them into the landfill instead of recycling them. As a result, the clothes release greenhouse gases as they deteriorate, which adds to global warming as more methane and carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere.
Not only is this devastating for our planet, but action is yet to be taken on a large scale to prevent this from becoming even more of a problem in the future, as platforms like the United Nations Climate Change Conference only cover other environmental issues such as pollution, deforestation and agriculture.
So, what can we do to take a stand and safeguard our futures? Perhaps the main thing we should (and can) all do is recycle unwanted clothes instead of throwing them in the bin. The charity Oxfam has a sorting centre that sifts through donated clothes, which are then either resold to their shops or sent on to other markets to be transformed into other materials, like mattress stuffing for instance!
(Wikimedia Commons)
Another clever choice we can make is to shop at small, sustainable local stores that do not churn out a ton of products simply to make a profit. At Go Eco Love, we create all kinds of fashionable bags, accessories and handmade clothes for children, so there is a style to suit every taste and age.
And that’s not all – we source our products very carefully and ensure that they are made of natural, organic materials so that we continue to respect our planet and actively make better choices for a cleaner, greener future. One way we source our products is by working with those in need in Sri Lanka, enabling us to acquire unique, carefully crafted items and to give back to those communities with our profits, so that they can build better lives for their families and villages.
While big fashion industries thrive on earning money to pump out more clothes for consumers which ultimately harms our planet, eco-conscious businesses like Go Eco Love are here to offer a safer, kinder alternative to make our world a better place, one step at a time.
Sources
‘Hayley Goes… Fashion Conscious’ from the BBC – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08jglyt