While most of us are aware of terms like fast fashion, sustainability, and climate change, few of us know how intertwined they are with our daily lives and how each purchase that we make from our favourite brand adds to the global climate crisis. Most denim lovers, for example, would have no idea about the amount of water that goes into making a pair of jeans. According to the UNEP, manufacturing a pair of jeans requires 3781 litres of water starting right from cotton production to delivery of the final product – an equivalent of at least 33.4 kilograms of carbon emissions.
According to studies conducted by the World Bank, every year, the fashion sector consumes 93 billion cubic metres of water, which is enough to meet the needs of five million people. Fabric dyeing and treatment account for approximately 20% of global wastewater. 87% of the total fibre input used for garments is burned or disposed of in a landfill. The industry accounts for 10% of yearly worldwide carbon emissions, which is more than all international flights and shipping combined.
If this continues at the same pace, the fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions will increase by more than 50% by 2030. Worldwide garment consumption will climb from 62 million metric tonnes in 2019 to 102 million tonnes in the next decade. Every year, half a million tons of plastic microfibers, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles, are poured into the ocean. This is a cause of grave concern because microfibers cannot be removed from the water and can spread across the food chain and the ecosystem.
That said, the fashion sector is critical to economic development too: it is worth approximately USD 2.4 billion globally and directly employs 75 million people across its value chain. After the automobile and technology industries, it is the world’s third-largest manufacturing sector.
But its business strategy is compounding the problem of pollution, climate change, and increased waste. Fashion collections are no longer seasonal; clothes’ stocks are replaced on a much more regular basis. Every week, many low-cost clothing stores introduce new designs.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 50 billion new pieces of clothing were produced in 2000; nearly 20 years later, that amount has more than doubled. The rapid pace of apparel manufacture has also spurred consumption: the average person now purchases 60% more clothing than in 2000. Not only has buying increased, but also the rate of discarding clothes.
Only about 1% of worn clothing is recycled into new outfits. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, approximately USD 500 billion is lost each year as a result of clothing that is scarcely worn, not donated, recycled, or that ends up in landfills. This makes it difficult for clothes manufacturers to expand without becoming environmental enemies, to become climate allies while also encouraging better working conditions in the sector.
When the Boston Consulting Group surveyed the fashion business in 2017 it discovered that the industry is slow to enhance its sustainability, with a score of only 32 out of 100. According to a World Economic Forum report for 2021, fashion and its supply chain are the third-largest polluters on the globe (after food and building), accounting for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The fibres are the most responsible for emissions. The production of a garment’s fibres accounts for roughly two-thirds of its carbon footprint. The harm is primarily due to our over-reliance on synthetic fibres (which account for 65% of clothes, which outnumbers our preference for cotton (at 21% ). Synthetic fibres, particularly polyester and nylon, are non-renewable and generated from fossil fuels, specifically crude oil.
In fact, 342 million barrels of oil are anticipated to be utilised each year in the creation of synthetic fibres. Aside from the fact that synthetics are less expensive and more widely available, the obvious alternative is cotton, but cotton has its own environmental consequences. Cotton necessitates a lot of water, as well as insecticides and fertilisers. Fertilisers are a carbon-intensive product in and of themselves (with one estimate suggesting that one tonne of nitrogenous fertiliser produces seven tonnes of CO2).
Using recycled and salvaged fibres are one option to mitigate these emissions. Instead of a ‘linear’ production cycle in which textiles are manufactured, worn, and discarded, a ‘circular’ production chain can be used instead. Instead of being thrown to the incinerator once a textile is used, it can be reintroduced into the supply chain so that it becomes a part of another garment; my blouse is your blouse. There is a distinction between recycling and reclaiming.
- Recycled: When a product is recycled, it is broken down into its constituent parts (for example, a polo shirt into synthetic fibres), which are then returned to the cycle (re-cycled), where they can reincarnate as anything made of synthetic fibres.
- Reclaimed: When a product is reclaimed, it remains in its final state and is re-used for its inherent features rather than being reduced to its components, such as denim jeans being converted into a denim bag.
The Inhumanity of Fast Fashion- Stories from India
The effects of COVID-19 on countries of the global south have been disproportionately higher. According to the estimates of the World Bank, nearly 150 million people will fall below the threshold of the poverty line.
One of the worst-hit is the garment workers in the global supply chain. With the commencement of the pandemic induced lockdown in March 2020, the majority of the apparel and fashion brands from the Global North had shut down their stores and cancelled orders with their suppliers who are mostly from the developing countries without any payments even though the orders were completed or were near completion.
In a country like Bangladesh, where the majority of the daily wage workers, especially women workers are from the garment industry, an estimated 3.1 billion dollars worth of orders were cancelled without any prior payments. The crisis further aggravated with the lack of new orders thus leaving almost 50 million workers unemployed globally.
The pandemic has exposed the deep-seated inequalities in the society by making the glaringly uneven power concentration in favour of the retailers and companies of the Global North more apparent. More often than not, these companies have ensured that they adhere to the ILO standards of no discrimination on any basis, fair wages, etc. but with the pandemic outbreak, all these commitments have vanished into thin air owing to the nonbinding status of the workers.
Indian labourers are subjected to unjust and harsh working conditions. Approximately 12.9 million people labour in sweatshops, with millions more working in informal settings, generally in their homes. India exports 47 % of its overall fast fashion output to the United States and the European Union. Fast fashion companies refused to pay for finished orders in March 2020, sacked workers with no severance pay, and left garment workers with few security and safety nets. As a result, millions of Indian textile workers went hungry, became prone to COVID-19, and also faced wage fraud.
Women working in formal and informal conditions boost India’s fashion industry, allowing it to meet global demand for fast fashion. After China, India’s clothing industry is the world’s second- largest exporter and manufacturer. According to forecasts, the domestic market will reach $59.3 billion in 2022, while the global market will reach $1.3 trillion by 2025. Despite a thriving economy, Indian garment workers face abuse, low wages, and hazardous working conditions while working for fast fashion firms.
Late in the year 2021, the scenario of white foam all over the Yamuna river was representative of the dismal reality of fashion that remains hidden, the aspect not only of expanding global clothing consumption but also of the true cost of cheap, ready-to-wear items that we are keen on buying and dumping. The 22-kilometre stretch of the Yamuna between Wazirabad and Okhla, which accounts for less than 2% of the river’s total length of 1,370 kilometres from Yamunotri to Allahabad, is responsible for approximately 80% of the pollution load in the river.
The phosphate concentration of detergents in the wastewater of fabric manufacturing units is linked to the poisonous foam heaps that surround the Yamuna for long periods of the year. Several such facilities may be found in the northern Indian state of Haryana, which borders Delhi.
There are hundreds of dyeing units in the small town of Panipat alone, and many of these machines discharge poisonous waste into the river. Drains carrying these effluents through villages pollute their drinkable water. Locals used to drink the water despite the fact that it was coloured with chemical dyes, but now they believe it is unsafe for their livestock to drink. This situation has substantial ramifications for the majority of Haryana’s inhabitants, who rely on agriculture for a living.
Farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to cultivate crops that have historically been grown in the state due to the scarcity of accessible water.
The Delhi state government was forced to shut down supply from large water treatment plants in 2019 because the level of ammonia generated by industrial waste was higher than what could be treated. This, however, did not fix the problem. The quantity of ammonia in water remained above acceptable norms for more than 33 days in 2020, affecting more than a third of Delhi’s water supply.
Stories from the villages surrounding this area reflect those from Panipat and other textile and garment hubs throughout the country. Untreated wastewater from dyeing and bleaching units has turned the Noyyal river into a polluted sewer and put the agricultural land around Tiruppur largely unusable, robbing thousands of farmers of their livelihoods.
These and other health problems have been related to the chemicals used in the manufacturing of viscose. Concerns have also been raised about the relationship between viscose manufacture and deforestation, as it is made from wood pulp. Nonetheless, as a less expensive alternative to silk, viscose is the lifeblood of the fast-fashion business. In addition, India, China, and Southeast Asia supply 83 % of the world’s viscose.
(Un)successful Policy Interventions And Present State of Fashion Industry In India
Despite such vastly devastating concerns arising from the fashion industry, the policy interventions haven’t been too successful in mitigating the crisis. One of the major reasons for the same is the dominance of the political and corporate nexus that makes policies ineffective to exploit and earn maximum profits. Another aspect is the lack of formal and safe employment conditions which force people to give in to precarious work conditions on which the fashion industry is also currently thriving.
Dystopian images in Mumbai, India’s financial metropolis, attest to the country’s regulatory regime’s status. Despite activists’ fears and protests, the river Waldhuni, which feeds water to the Mumbai Metropolitan Area, regularly runs red with dyes from textile businesses, and blue canines affected by indigo colours have been seen roaming the city’s streets. Regulations are easily bypassed on rare occasions when they are sincerely attempted to be enforced.
Consider the strange case of Shiv Vihar, a Delhi neighbourhood that gained the label of “cancer colony” due to the hazardous waste released by its jeans dyeing plants. Taking Shiv Vihar as an example, the Supreme Court of India ordered the shutdown of all polluting companies in Delhi. The polluting units were secretly relocated across a couple of streets.
When activists brought this to the attention of regulators, the latter stated that because these units no longer exist on paper, they could not be shut down because the regulator would first have to regularise them in order to issue notice to them. Blue dyes continued to flood and wreak havoc from Shiv Vihar’s drains in this manner.
The question of why workers did this is of major concern. However, the answer isn’t difficult to understand. If the units were to close, new sources of income would be difficult to come by, and they would face starvation and abject suffering. They have to choose between short-term and long-term sadness, which isn’t much of a choice.
Need to Make Conscious Choices
To improve the situation, governments must address several aspects of the problem at the same time. Fashion brands, too, must reconsider their production models and embrace scientific innovation, ethical practices, and increased transparency, rather than simply spending in marketing efforts that seek to greenwash their wrongdoings but, in the end, it is up to us, the consumers, to act responsibly. We may not have the authority that legislators and large corporations do, but we surely have more options than marginalised people in less-developed nations who are forced to suffer the brunt of the fashion industry’s hazardous byproducts.
Making conscious choices like thrifting instead of mindless buying, recycling and reclaiming etc. is the need of the hour and is one of the first and foremost steps in the path to switch from fast fashion to sustainable fashion.
Many small homegrown businesses in the form of thrift stores are coming up in India that support recycling and reclaiming old clothes, shoes, bags etc. to reduce the burden on the environment. While it might sound ambitious, it is not an impossible feat to achieve if all of us do our part of switching to conscious ways of living and indulging mindfully while making our next run to our favourite fashion brand stores.