Positive developments in fast fashion

California and the EU are leading the way in combatting an increasingly wasteful and polluting industry

Fires continue in Southern California, and Donald Trump returning to the White House threatens our freedoms and our environment. I said about as much as I feel qualified to say on the fires in last week’s Green Dispatch, and I’ve yet to fully understand what Trump is doing to the environment. I’ll address that in a few weeks. So this week I’m concentrating on a topic I’ve been meaning to address for some time, fast fashion.

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What is fast fashion

Fast fashion refers to inexpensive clothing that is quickly brought to market. Being less durable, the garments are discarded soon after purchase, usually winding up in landfills. Other fast fashion items are then purchased to replace the tossed-out garments, continuing the cycle. Fast fashion has great environmental ramifications, but recent developments may help put the brakes on this wasteful industry.

The model of fast fashion mirrors other trends of manufacturing. Producers have lowered labor costs of garment production by moving factories to China and other countries with lower wages. In Bangladesh, the world’s second largest exporter of clothing, workers in garment factories earn the equivalent of $113.00 a month. Increasing automation enables garment companies to further lower their production costs. Clothing producers can thereby lower their profit margins and rely on massive sales of cheaply produced goods to make their profits.

A quick click-through of Shein or Temu, both based in China and known for fast fashion and ultra-cheap consumer goods, reveals a garment smorgasbord of shirts for eight dollars or even five dollars, what it might cost for a cappuccino at a coffee shop. Lots of folks take advantage of the ease and affordability of ordering new clothes. A report from the U.S. House of Representatives on fast fashion estimated that 30 percent of packages worth under $800—and therefore not subject to import tariffs—are from Shein and Temu. In the United States, the trend for more and faster fashion is expected to increase by 45 percent from 2023 to 2030.

Why this is a problem

With its reliance on textiles, clothing production uses resources intensively, produces greenhouse gases, and makes a lot of waste. As the supply chains are complex and stretch over great distances, even more fossil fuel is used and more carbon goes up into the skies. Fast fashion takes all these factors and gins them up.

Each item costs very little yet produces a lot of carbon dioxide. Producing one women’s denim jacket produces 1.4 tons of CO2, about what a driver produces in a gas-powered car in three months. Producing the matching pair of denim jeans will use 2,000 gallons of water. According to the United Nations Environment Program, the fashion industry presently produces about ten percent of global carbon emissions, more than the combined emissions from shipping and aviation. The UN Framework Convention of Climate Change estimates that emissions from textile production will increase by 60 percent by 2030.

Then, too, there is the direct pollution from garment factories. In China, the largely unregulated textile industry produces 2.5 billion gallons of wastewater, contaminating 70 percent of their rivers and lakes, some of which are so polluted they are devoid of life. Communities still use these water bodies for drinking and bathing. Incidences of cancers, as well as gastric and skin ailments have risen in these communities.

The good news

Once again, California is leading the way on an environmental issue. This past September, the state legislature and governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB-707 Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024. The new law will not require consumers to recycle their clothes, but it will make it easier for them to do so. It requires textile and clothing companies to accept unwanted