Fast Fashion: An Analysis of Environmental and Social Drawbacks

This essay critically analyzes the concept of fast fashion, arguing that its drawbacks heavily outweigh its benefits. While acknowledging the affordability and accessibility of trendy clothing, the essay highlights the significant environmental and social costs associated with the industry. It details the short life cycles of fast fashion garments, the exploitation of factory workers, and the detrimental impacts on the environment, including water stress, pollution from cotton production, and the immense textile waste that ends up in landfills. The essay also addresses the social disadvantages, such as poor working conditions and wages for garment workers, particularly in developing nations. By examining these issues, the essay underscores the unsustainable nature of fast fashion and its adverse effects on both society and the planet, concluding that the true cost of fast fashion is far more ruinous than its perceived affordability.

Fast Fashion
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The idea of fast fashion has both pros and cons as certainly it permits the mainstream
consumers to get engaged into trendy and current fashion without spending much money at
designer or department outlets, however this price for clothing comes with its own
disadvantages which are adverse and actually more costly in long run. So a constant debate
surrounds on this concept of fast fashion that who actually pay the price of fast fashion
clothing. In my opinion certainly the drawback of fast fashion heavily outweighs their
benefits as though these may be cheaper alternative to popular brands but actually their cost
are ruinous (Khandual and Pradhan, 2019). Fast fashion concentrates on speed and low costs
so as to deliver regular updated collections inspired by celebrity styles but these are
specifically damaging both socially and environmentally. For instance fast fashion clothing
has short life cycles which means factory workers are put into economically disadvantaged
circumstances, poor working condition to cut cost and time which is involved in production
of garment which is considered quickly disposable and wearing and these negatively harms
people and planet resources. Secondly as cotton is most common natural fiber utilized in
making of garments so fast fashion creates water stress and pollution. According to estimates
2,700 liters of water is consumed in making of one cotton short which is enough for one
person to drink for 21/2 years, this means more of fast fashion production can be specifically
ruining. Moreover cotton production generates around 24% use of insecticides, 11% use of
pesticides which means more of fast fashion clothing will increase levels of chemical
pollution (Garg, 2020).
Further as fast fashion quickly fades, so consumers largely discard their clothing and get
tempted to buy new style of garments which means more textile waste is produced which is
either burnt or sent to landfills. According to estimates around 1 garbage truck of clothes is
sent to landfill each second. Such huge textile waste is enough to fill 1.5 Empire State
Buildings each day or enough to fill Sydney Harbor each year. This production of fast fashion
clothing is also resource and emission exhaustive as in making of 1 pair of jeans as much
greenhouse gases are released as is generated in driving a car at more than 80 miles (Perry,
2018) Also thrown away fast fashion garments are mostly made of non-biodegradable
fabrics which sits into landfills for around 200 years making adverse impact on environment.
apart from these fast fashion clothing has several social disadvantages such as according to
estimates around 75 mn workers are engaged in making of these clothing and about 80% of
these are made by young women between 18-24 years of age who are primarily working from
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less developing nations like Bangladesh and earn as less as around $96 each month (Reichart
and Drew, 2019). However the government’s wage recommend that these fast fashion
workers should be paid around 3.5 times more than what is being paid so as to make a decent
living with basic facilities. This means more of fast fashion production will bring pressure on
social fabric and wellbeing of workers due to poor working conditions and wages, forced
labor in industry specifically in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, China etc.
So though fast fashion may be cheaper priced alternative but they bring in adverse impact and
stress on society, environment and production resources leading to outweighing drawbacks
than profits.
References
Garg, P. (2020). Introduction to Fast Fashion: Environmental Concerns and Sustainability
Measurements. In Environmental Concerns and Sustainable Development (pp. 409-427).
Springer, Singapore. 10.1007/978-981-13-6358-0_18
Khandual, A., and Pradhan, S. (2019). Fashion brands and consumers approach towards
sustainable fashion. In Fast fashion, fashion brands and sustainable consumption (pp. 37-54).
Springer, Singapore. 10.1007/978-981-13-1268-7_3
Perry. P (2018) The Environmental Cost of Fast fashion. Independent. Retrieved from:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/environment-costs-fast-fashion-pollution-
waste-sustainability-a8139386.html
Reichart, E and Drew, D (2019). By the Numbers: The Economic, Social and Environmental
Impacts of “Fast Fashion”. World Resources Institute. Retrieved from:
https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/01/numbers-economic-social-and-environmental-impacts-
fast-fashion
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