Bleeding Blue: Environmental Injustices Associated with the Textile and Garment Production Industry in China

Bleeding Blue: Environmental Injustices Associated

with the Textile and Garment Production Industry in China

The phenomenon of globalization has resulted in economic, political, and environmental transformations which impact people around the world. The expanding economic influence of countries and industries has resulted in inequalities and disparities in market systems, particularly within the global textile and garment commodity chain. A significant proportion of globalization and industrialization efforts are concentrated in China, where textile and garment production has blossomed in recent years. As a result of these trends in development, China has assumed a role as the world manufacturing hub[1]. Foreign firms and investors are attracted to China’s enormous labor force, which is becoming increasingly available in urban centers where production proliferates. This massive labor force establishes China as a main producer in the textile and garment commodity chain — a global assembly line which is riddled with environmental injustices.

China’s enormous labor force is responsible for the mass production of goods and materials which service an extensive export market[2]. This exorbitant output garners significant economic rewards for the clothing production industry in China and attracts increased foreign investment into the country. These benefits, however, come at substantial environmental and social costs. The clothing production industry in China generates massive pollution which degrades surrounding environments and the health of local residents. Societal structures in China changed by foreign development, perpetuate this pollution and provide no reprieve for those who are forced to pay the price of high mass production and high mass consumption.

In the past century, China has achieved remarkable economic growth and development[3]. China’s position as a world power has fluctuated drastically throughout history, but a focus on accruement of investment and capital from foreign industry has elevated the country to a major position in today’s world market[4]. This revenue, however, is largely concentrated in the urban areas of China. In conjunction with this concentration of revenue, rural regions are starved of resources and their means of livelihood as a result of the development of global food networks[5]. Cheap foreign food imports from the U.S. provide China’s population with affordable, accessible food products. These imports, however, out-compete domestic farmers. This drives rural farmers out of China’s agricultural industry and forces them to seek alternative means of livelihood. Consequently, rural farmers migrate in huge masses to industrialized cities, where they search for employment in factories and production facilities[6]. Many of these migrants are young women — a demographic which is chronicled in the documentary, China Blue. This movie follows a young girl named Jasmine as she works as a factory laborer within the garment manufacturing industry in China[7].

Jasmine, like many other young women from rural China, faces many difficulties in her journey within the Chinese labor force. The labor force in China is a gendered system in which women comprise a disproportionate majority of the unskilled laborers[8]. Women and girls like Jasmine are oftentimes devalued in various realms of Chinese society, with some rural families even selling their daughters into labor contracts as a means of subsistence[9]. Owners and employers of textile and garment factories recognize and exploit this devaluation of women, preferentially hiring female workers due to their docile nature and reduced likelihood of protesting inadequate work conditions[10]. Under these unethical conditions, female laborers are grossly exploited and face many hardships, such as “Twelve-hour shifts — with enforced overtime — and seven-day work weeks…with managers using militaristic methods to break in and control the migrant labor force”[11].

Widespread exploitation of the migrant labor force in China is commonplace, as laborers are frequently subjected to unsafe working conditions. These laborers experience further detrimental and constraining conditions outside of factories, as societal structures dictated by the hukou system impose harsh restrictions and regulations upon migrant laborers[12]. The hukou system is a household registration system in China designed to restrict the movement of rural migrant workers in urban areas, as well as limit their access to the amenities of urban residence[13]. Jasmine, as rural migrant, is hindered by many constraints and hardships in her pursuit of employment. Under the hukou system, families are not allowed to accompany migrant laborers into urban areas, forcing Jasmine to make her journey alone[14]. The hukou system also prevents rural migrants like Jasmine from establishing permanent residence within certain cities. Furthermore, it prohibits migrant children from enrolling in local schools and it also restricts migrants’ access to healthcare[15]. The system also requires migrant workers to obtain highly expensive and largely inaccessible work certifications and documents permitting them to gain employment in cities[16].

These constraints impede Jasmine’s efforts to obtain employment and make her more susceptible to exploitation. The money that Jasmine must spend on purchasing her required hukou documents puts her at an immediate financial deficit which she must quickly alleviate in order to support herself and her dependent family members who remain in rural China[17]. Therefore, Jasmine becomes more desperate in her search for employment and more willing to accept lower standards of work and life quality in order to remedy her financial burden[18]. These constraints are prevalent in many of China’s major production cities, such as Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. In her efforts to ease her financial strain and attain a job, Jasmine would travel to a heavily industrialized area of China, such as the Pearl River Delta region. In this region, textile and garment manufacturing facilities are densely concentrated, especially in Xintang which is regarded as China’s “jeans capital”[19].

In Xintang, Jasmine would acquire a job as a laborer in one of many blue jeans factories which populate the city. Her factory employer would likely hold her expensive hukou documents hostage in their custody in order to discourage Jasmine’s departure from her work[20]. Additionally, the employers might also demand an initial deposit or withhold Jasmine’s payment, thereby forcing Jasmine to remain at the factory and guard her investment regardless of deplorable work conditions[21]. Many factories house their workers in dormitories nearby or adjacent to the production facilities. Jasmine would reside in one of these dormitories as a condition of her employment — corralled with other laborers in a miniscule amount of living space[22].

Unjust labor conditions, however, are only a part of the problems associated with textile and garment production in China. The revenue and investment which textile factories accumulate in China discourages government regulation and management of these facilities[23]. Without enforced restrictions, factories are free to unleash pollution into the surrounding environment. Xintang and other cities along the Pearl River Delta experience rampant pollution — much of it deposited into the Pearl River[24]. In recent years, the Pearl River has gradually transformed into a grotesque blue streak as dyes and other contaminants invade the ecosystem from the discharge pipes of nearby factories[25]. This factory effluent contains dyes from blue jeans, detergent, bleach, and an assortment of other chemicals which have extremely harmful effects on the millions of Chinese citizens who depend on the Pearl River for their water supply[26].

Jasmine and other factory workers face disproportionate risk to these environmental harms. Their nearby residence and dependency upon the Pearl River as a water source is a direct condition of their employment at a factory which is responsible for the pollution. The constraints imposed upon these laborers by the confines of their housing situation, the hostage nature of their valuable hukou documents, and their low pay prevents laborers from escaping the dangers of their polluted environment. Without any alternatives, Jasmine and other regional laborers face increased exposure to dangerous toxins and environmental hazards such as brain damage from manganese, hormone disruption from alkyl phenols, kidney failure, cancer, and nervous system damage[27].

This environmental injustice can be understood by what William R. Freudenburg describes as a “double diversion”[28]. The first diversion concerns the restricted access of Chinese garment factory laborers to healthy environments and resources as compared to those with positions of authority. Laborers’ exposure to harmful environmental risks, such as contaminated water supplies, is a consequence of the unequal distribution of wealth and rights throughout the textile and garment commodity chain. While Jasmine and other workers become increasing exposed to risks of irrevocable brain damage and diseases, factory owners, foreign retailers, and foreign consumers reap the benefits of their disproportionate suffering.

Freudenburg’s second diversion addresses First World consumption practices and the means by which they abet environmental injustices in the textile and garment industry. Consumers play a major role in driving the trajectory of the textile and garment commodity chain, particularly consumers from more developed nations in the west and in Europe. These consumers oftentimes neglect the magnitude of their impact; their preferences for certain brands and clothing bolsters suppliers of those commodities, thereby supporting the environmental injustices which they perpetuate[29]. Through the seemingly harmless purchase of a pair of jeans in a department store, a First World consumer could inadvertently lend support to a chain of exploitation and abuse that suppresses the rights and well-being of laborers within China’s manufacturing facilities.

This disproportionate allocation of harms is a consequence of the treadmill of production, which encourages unjust practices throughout the global textile and garment commodity chain. The treadmill of production arises as a result of decreasing costs of goods complemented by a need to increase production in order to offset the price deficit and accrue a profit for select beneficiaries[30]. This distribution of wealth is achieved through concessions such as reduced pay for factory laborers, polluting practices which serve as low-cost shortcuts to waste disposal, and other unethical tactics[31]. The trade-offs associated with this treadmill of production create inequality by concentrating benefits at the consumption end of the supply chain, while the unskilled laborers at the production end incur the damages.

The consumers, factory owners, and foreign retailers who benefit from this increased production drive the diversions associated with the environmental injustices imposed upon laborers. These entities are motivated by different economic interests. Consumers supplied by the textile and garment commodity chain are driven by their preferences for certain brands and products in surplus. The factory owners are compelled to conduct environmental and social harms by their desire to increase their revenue through heightened production[32]. This production then feeds foreign retailers, who exponentially benefit and sequester the majority of the profit from the production process[33]. These massive profits are the result of cost reductions in labor payment and production expenses[34]. This increased production fuels increased consumption of commodities in First World countries, thereby enveloping the textile and garment industry in a positive feedback loop, in which factory laborers like Jasmine serve as the receptacle for negative externalities.

In order to remedy the systemic environmental injustices plaguing the textile and garment production industry in China, systemic changes need to occur throughout the commodity chain. Increasing awareness among consumers regarding the diversions which they perpetuate can help spur reform within the garment production system in China[35]. Insight can be provided through awareness campaigns which expose veiled environmental injustices occurring within Chinese factories throughout the textile and garment production industry.

Such campaigns are often successfully conveyed through film and media projects. Film directors David McIlvride, Roger Williams, and Andrew Morgan have illuminated issues regarding the environmental and social consequences of the fashion industry, particularly in the urban production zones of China. They poignantly capture the rampant pollution of ecosystems, such as the Pearl River, showcasing the dark blue streaks bleeding out from pipes protruding from nearby blue jean factories[36]. These images resonate with viewers and consumers and reveal the potent pollution produced by the garment and blue jean industry through ground-breaking films such as RiverBlue and The True Cost.

Beyond increased media coverage, efforts towards more sustainable and ethical work practices are emerging within design studios themselves. Francoise Girbaud, the “father of distressed jeans” is a notable denim designer who worked in conjunction with the Spanish design company, Jeanologia, to develop more sustainable methods of jean production[37]. Jean production requires immense amounts of water, as each pair of jeans consumes around 920 gallons[38]. Furthermore, in the absence of water treatment plants, the resulting wastewater is improperly disposed — sometimes into local rivers, such as the Pearl River in Xintang[39]. Girbaud, however, created a new method of jean production which completely eliminates the need for water by using lasers to style the fabric. Other companies such as Milan-based, Italdenim, have improved their jean manufacturing process by increasing investments into their water treatment facilities[40]. Such improvements provide solutions to the systemic pollution problems which plague the people and environment of the industrial regions of China. Widespread implementation of these practices within garment manufacturing plants in China can help to alleviate Jasmine’s exposure to factory toxins without jeopardizing or forfeiting her employment through relocation. By alleviating the pollution of local factories, these practices can help to reduce environmental injustice.

Other companies, such as People Tree Ltd., target the social dimensions of these environmental injustices through ethical supply chain management. Social entrepreneur and CEO of People Tree Ltd., Safia Minney, founded her sustainable clothing company on the basis of worker welfare and quality sustainable products[41]. The company prioritizes worker welfare in their factories and ensures their safety through intense regulation and scrutiny of their supply chain, as well as transparency with their consumers[42]. The awareness that People Tree Ltd. communicates throughout its production process inspires increased responsibility among its consumers, thereby diminishing Freudenburg’s second diversion regarding consumer negligence. Minney is also an advocate of “slow fashion” which rejects the trade-offs of the treadmill of production. This production method substitutes rapid, unsustainable production models of disproportionate benefits, with focused efforts on sustainable design and Fair Trade practices[43].

Efforts from industry figures such as David McIlvride, Francoise Girbaud, and Safia Minney have helped progress the textile and garment industry towards a safer, healthier environment for Chinese migrant laborers. Despite these advancements, however, significant injustice still remains within the textile and garment industry in China. The hukou system still hinders the job prospects and opportunities of migrant workers, factory owners still exploit a largely female labor force, and laborers like Jasmine still face unethical work conditions and low wages. The power to effect change within both the environmental and social dimensions of this problem lies with consumers. Freudenburg’s diversions emphasize the role of economic consumer interests and negligence towards issues of environmental injustice in the clothing manufacturing industry. Furthermore, consumers are responsible for feeding the treadmill of production with their excessive purchase of garments and clothing[44]. These concepts highlight the highly influential role of consumers in this commodity chain. Consumers must be made aware and motivated to challenge the social structures which enable unethical production practices.

New production strategies by people like Francoise Girbaud and Safia Minney have created alternative production mechanisms, but reform must ultimately be driven by consumers. Consumers must use their purchasing power to incentivize companies and factories to adopt more just and environmentally-conscious methods. This power can be used to defend laborers, like Jasmine, at the opposite end of the supply chain who are hindered by social restrictions and economic constraints. By demanding greater social responsibility and accountability among clothing companies, consumers can steer the textile and garment commodity chain towards a more sustainable trajectory.

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[1] Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc, 2016), Page 70–71.

[2] Ibid. Page 85–86.

[3] Anita Chan, “A ‘Race to the bottom’: Globalisation and China’s labour standards”, China Perspectives, March-April 2003.

[4] Judith Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2012) Page 104.

[5] Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, Page 67–68.

[6] Anita Chan, “A ‘Race to the bottom’: Globalisation and China’s labour standards”, China Perspectives, March-April 2003.

[7] Micha X. Peled, China Blue, Directed by Micha X. Peled, 2005; USA: Teddy Bear Films Inc., 2007, Film.

[8] Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, Page 91.

[9] Ibid. Page 91.

[10] Ibid. Page 86.

[11] Ibid. Page 84.

[12] Kam Wing Chan, “A China Paradox: Migrant Labor Shortage amidst Rural Labor Supply Abundance”, Eurasian Geography and Economics. July-August 2010. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2747/1539-7216.51.4.513

[13] Judith Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, Page 158.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Anita Chan, “A ‘Race to the bottom’: Globalisation and China’s labour standards”, China Perspectives, March-April 2003.

[18] Ibid.

[19] N.a. “Jeans add to Pearl River’s pollution woes,” UPI, 4/29/2010.

[20] Anita Chan, “A ‘Race to the bottom’: Globalisation and China’s labour standards”, China Perspectives, March-April 2003.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Micha X. Peled, China Blue, Directed by Micha X. Peled, 2005; USA: Teddy Bear Films Inc., 2007, Film.

[23] Judith Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, Page 134–135.

[24] N.a, “Jeans add to Pearl River’s pollution woes”, UPI, 4/29/2010.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid.

[28] William R. Freudenburg, “Privileged Access, Privileged Accounts: Toward a Socially Structured Theory of Resources and Discourses”, Vol. 84, №1, Sep., 2005, pp. 89–114.

[29] Kathleen Webber. “How Fast Fashion is Killing Rivers Worldwide,” EcoWatch, 3/22/2017.

[30] Michael M. Bell, Loka L. Ashwood, An Invitation to Environmental Sociology, SAGE Publications, Inc; Fifth edition, August 6, 2015, Page 87

[31] Ibid.

[32] Micha X. Peled, China Blue, Directed by Micha X. Peled, 2005; USA: Teddy Bear Films Inc., 2007, Film.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Michael M. Bell, Loka L. Ashwood, An Invitation to Environmental Sociology, Page 86

[35] Judith Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, Page 134.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Kathleen Webber. “How Fast Fashion is Killing Rivers Worldwide,” EcoWatch, 3/22/2017.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Andrew Morgan, The True Cost, directed by Andrew Morgan (2015; USA: Life is My Movie Entertainment, 2015), Film.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Michael M. Bell, Loka L. Ashwood, An Invitation to Environmental Sociology, Page 74