Fast-shion Fix

The future of fast fashion

I’m dreaming of the day when every piece of my clothing is able to be recycled into completely new pieces of clothing. It hurts to find out that something that you’re pretty passionate about is hurting another thing you are also very passionate about. It kind of feels like when your sister doesn’t like your best friend. I was hurt when I found out that my love for clothes is actually really bad for the environment. I always donate my clothes or have a yard sale rather than just throwing old clothes in the garbage bin, but those extra little efforts I put in basically result to a large percentage of my clothes still going to landfills anyway. Now, I’m not going to just give up and fling piles of clothes in the garbage. Instead, I’m a bit more wary of the types of clothes I buy and where I take them once I am ready to be donated. I’m going to keep doing this even after clothes are 100% recyclable.

The solution to solve fast fashion was really exciting to me once I considered that it would be helping the economy, the environment, and social justice issues. Tons of clothes won’t be piling up in India and Africa causing women to lose their textile related jobs when the community opts to buy the cheaper secondhand clothing. If we can turn a polyester shirt back into thread in order to make another polyester shirt, we could make polyester clothing without relying on oil. If we stopped consuming clothing at the rate that we do now, we could save so women from working in sweat shops. In a new closed loop textile industry, reuse would still be the most environmentally and economically friendly route. However, there would be incentive to take clothing in once it is ready to be recycled. Companies are going to be able to make profit off of this part of the industry and the consumers are going to be encouraged to participate. Also, continuously recycling in this way helps to avoid pollution at the site of raw material extraction. This is an important thing to think about because it has been argued that recycling rates of material must exceed 80% in order to really have a huge effect on the amount of natural resources we have already consumed. We have consumed so much already that people are arguing that recycling doesn’t really help, but I feel that if we tackle an industry as big as this one then we can move towards making a difference.

We’re dealing with a different type of work now. This is different than the work of generations of farmers, this is the work of a new generation. There haven’t been many before us that have complete knowledge about recycling and trying to slow down all of the harm we have already done to our planet. Humans, as a collective, have to realize that this planet is our home and as long as we all put in our own efforts to save it. Our common interest should be to save our home and create technology that doesn’t take up as much fossil fuels or safer replacements for them. We shouldn’t degrade the land beyond recovery and we don’t have to. I want my children to be able to have the technology that I’ve had access to in my lifetime and would love for them to have the opportunity to create their own. The fashion industry is a great place to start fixing these issues because there is so much waste that, I feel, can be easily controlled. If we can make recycling our clothes as trendy as the outfits we put together, we will see change.