Alas, it is easy to deduce that all this has a devastating impact on the environment.
The dark side of fast fashion
First of all, the large-scale production of clothing requires enormous quantities of resources, including water and energy. Moreover, the processes of making and dyeing fabrics often generate a considerable amount of toxic waste, which is not always disposed of properly, contaminating water resources and damaging the surrounding ecosystems.
Furthermore, the transport of finished garments, frequently produced in China and shipped all over the world, has a considerable impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to rising global temperatures.
Fast fashion also fuels a culture of waste and of throwing things away, with millions of tonnes of textiles ending up in landfill every year. The reasoning, unfortunately, goes like this: I’ll buy it, it’s cheap anyway, and if I don’t like it I’ll send it back or, worse, throw it away. But no one thinks about how much CO2 is produced by returning a little dress from one side of the world to the other. Nor about what happens to all the unsold clothes.
Finally, we must consider that this model also has a devastating impact on the human rights of workers in the clothing industry. The factories that produce garments for fast fashion brands often operate in dangerous working conditions and exploit their employees with unpaid overtime, low wages and a lack of safety.
Faced with these realities, several journalists, some well-known associations and consumers themselves have begun to make their voices heard.
Greenpeace’s appeal
Among the best-known campaigns against fast fashion, the recent Greenpeace investigation stands out (Fast fashion: low-cost fashion, but at what price?), which has highlighted how every year, in Europe alone, 230 million practically new garments are sent to be pulped. Between clothes and footwear, we are talking about 5 million tonnes thrown away, 80% of which ends up in incinerators or in landfills in the Global South.
Greenpeace also points out that the labels on these products, or the websites of the companies that sell them, often carry promises of sustainability: beware! It is nothing but greenwashing. Many garments or accessories are deliberately designed to last a season or to break within a few weeks.
Milena Gabanelli’s investigation
Milena Gabanelli, the well-known journalist of Corriere della Sera, also explored the topic of fast fashion in one of her Dataroom episodes broadcast during the La7 news, investigating a Chinese company founded 15 years ago to sell only online at extremely low prices (.. the dark side of fast fashion).
The app of this well-known Chinese company has recently become extremely popular; every day it uploads about 500 new designs: how is that possible? Quite simply, it copies them, and it is no coincidence that it is swamped by constant plagiarism lawsuits. Its target audience is, moreover, teenagers and the very young, precisely those who should be most sensitive and attentive to the environmental cause…
The data to emerge from the investigation into the damage Shein does to the planet is chilling: to produce one cotton T-shirt, Shein uses on average 2,700 litres of water, since the plantations have to be irrigated; the toxic residues of synthetic products, which contain harmful substances beyond legal limits, pollute watercourses and, what is more, are not safe in contact with the skin; finally, 92 million tonnes of textile waste are generated every year, of which only 15% is recycled.
What is the alternative?
Fortunately, more and more consumers are realising the importance of making conscious choices when it comes to fashion. We can all contribute to significant change by changing our consumption habits, buying less, choosing carefully, preferring brands that adopt sustainable practices and respect human rights, or alternatively buying vintage and second-hand clothes.
Of course, transforming the fashion industry also requires a joint commitment from brands, governments and non-governmental organisations to make the sector fairer and more sustainable. Concrete measures urgently need to be adopted, since fast fashion represents a serious threat to the planet.
