Fast Fashion or Slow Fashion? The Environmental Cost of Fast Fashion

Heavy use of agrochemicals can cause nausea, diarrhoea, cancers and respiratory diseases, and acute pesticide poisoning is responsible for nearly 1,000 deaths a day and afflicts neurological and reproductive problems, such as infertility, miscarriage and birth defects.

Later City News: The fashion industry is facing increasing global scrutiny of its environmentally polluting supply chain operations. Despite the widely publicized environmental impacts, however, the industry continues to grow, in part due to the rise of fast fashion, which relies on cheap manufacturing, frequent consumption and short-lived garment use.

In a research recently published by journal of Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Kirsi Niinimäki and his research team from Scandinavian and American universities shows that Impacts from the fashion industry include over 92 million tonnes of waste produced per year and 79 trillion litres of water consumed. On the basis of these environmental impacts, the research outlines the need for fundamental changes in the fashion business model, including a deceleration of manufacturing and the introduction of sustainable practices throughout the supply chain, as well a shift in consumer behaviour — namely, decreasing clothing purchases and increasing garment lifetimes.

These changes stress the need for an urgent transition back to ‘slow’ fashion, minimizing and mitigating the detrimental environmental impacts, so as to improve the long-term sustainability of the fashion supply chain.

Carbon footprint

Textiles, alongside aluminium, generate the most greenhouse gases per unit of material. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that the textile industry causes 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but the scope and method of this estimate are unclear.

In this research more conservative estimates have also been made — Quantis, for example, estimated that the fashion industry emitted approximately 4.0 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 equivalent in 2016, or 8.1% of global CO2 equivalent emissions. Approximately one-fifth (0.7Gt CO2 equivalent, or 1.4% of global emissions) of these CO2 emissions were from footwear alone, with the rest from apparel (3.3Gt CO2 equivalent, or 6.7% of global emissions), although none of these estimates includes emissions during the use phase of the life cycle, such as transport from retail environments and laundering. Estimates from the Carbon Trust are more conservative, approximating 0.33Gt of CO2 equivalent emitted in 2011 due to clothing production (omitting footwear), with a further 0.530Gt of CO2 added by the use phase of the life cycle.

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Similarly, a study of Swedish textiles consumption42 found that the use phase could contribute 14% of the total climate impacts of clothing consumption. The research estimate global production of 2.9 Gt of CO2 equivalent emissions, two-thirds of which is associated with synthetic materials during fibre production, textile manufacturing and garment construction. This estimate is based on the results obtained by Sandin et al. for the Swedish consumption of textiles, scaled to the global consumption of textiles in 2018 and excluding the use phase for comparability with the Quantis estimate.

The fashion industry’s high carbon footprint comes from high energy use and is influenced by the source of the energy used. For example, in China, textile manufacturing depends on coal-based energy and, as a result, has a 40% larger carbon footprint than textiles made in Turkey or Europe. High energy demands and CO2 emissions are associated with textile manufacturing and consumer use (namely, laundering), as well shipping when air freight is used.

However, in the garment life cycle, energy use and CO2 emission is highest during initial fibre extraction, especially for synthetic fibres, such as acrylics, as they originate from fossil fuel. Polyamide production, for example, uses 160kWh per kg of fibre.

Chemical use

The textile industry uses over 15,000 different chemicals during the manufacturing process, beginning during fibre production. Estimates suggest that, in terms of financial value, 6% of global pesticide production is applied to cotton crops, including 16% of insecticide use, 4% of herbicides, growth regulators, desiccants and defoliants, and 1% of fungicides. Heavy use of agrochemicals can cause nausea, diarrhoea, cancers and respiratory diseases, and acute pesticide poisoning is responsible for nearly 1,000 deaths a day and afflicts neurological and reproductive problems, such as infertility, miscarriage and birth defects.

In the environment, agrochemicals leach into the soil, where they cause a decrease in soil biodiversity and fertility, interrupt biological processes and destroy microorganisms, plants and insects.

Despite the substantial human and environmental impacts of pesticide application, non-target species have become increasingly problematic (such as the whitefly Bemisia tabaci), leading to increased insecticide application. While the introduction of genetically modified cotton led to a reduction in external pesticide application, reduction appears to have been a temporary phenomenon in major cotton-producing countries such as India, Brazil, China and the USA.

Textile waste

The dramatic increases in (fast) fashion production and consumption volumes have resulted in increasing textile waste. Western countries traditionally handled textile waste by exporting old garments to developing countries, such as those in Africa.

However, with higher waste production, this practice cannot continue, as many developing countries are banning the import of textile waste, either to protect domestic textile production (as in Turkey and China) or because markets are oversaturated by second-hand garments and second-hand clothing has replaced local production (as in parts of Africa).

Pre-consumer waste in fashion, also referred to as production waste, is produced during the manufacturing of textiles and garments, and includes fibre, yarn and fabric waste, the last of which is the greatest waste of resources.

One study estimated that 15% of fabric used in garment manufacturing is wasted; in other studies, the figure is ~10% for pants and jeans and >10% for blouses, jackets and underwear, and some estimates even place textile waste during garment manufacturing at 25–30%.

This waste percentage is impacted by many variables, from garment type and design to fabric width and fabric-surface design (for instance, greater waste is associated with one-directional prints). The fabric waste is produced during the cutting phase of garment construction and is influenced by how well the flat patterns are designed to be fitted on the fabric and by the garment design in general.

Moreover, mistakes in garment assembly cause garments to be wasted. As the output of the global fashion system has grown, so have all forms of production waste. To decrease the amount of pre-production waste, manufacturing rates should be decreased and production should be made more accurate through better communication between design and manufacturing.

Post-production waste comprises garments discarded by consumers, including almost 60% of the ~150 billion garments produced globally in 2012 that were discarded within several years after production. The turnaround from consumption to post-production waste is rapid — the use lives of three garment types (T-shirts, knit collared shirts and woven pants) in six countries (China, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA) averaged only 3.1 to 3.5 years per garment, albeit with significant variation between countries.

The short garment lifetimes, alongside increased consumption, has led to a 40% increase in landfilled textile waste in the USA between 1999 and 2009, and, globally, textiles account for up to 22% of mixed waste worldwide.

For fibre produced in 2015, 73% (39Gt) was landfilled at their end of life. Per capita, both the USA and the UK waste an average of 30kg of textiles per person annually, which is similar to Australia (27kg annually) and more than in Finland (13kg) and Denmark (16kg).

Despite the high waste, textile-recycling rates remain low — only 15% of post-consumer textile waste was collected separately for recycling purposes in 2015, and less than 1% (0.5 million tonnes) of total production was recycled in closed loop (recycled into the same or similar quality applications).

Most of the recycled textiles (6.4 million tonnes) were recycled into other, lower-value applications, such as insulation material, wiping cloths and mattress stuffing, and 1.1 million tonnes were lost during collection and processing.

Post-consumer textile collection rates varies widely between countries, for instance, 11% of annual textile waste in Italy and 75% in Germany, and some have no textile-recycling system at all. The UK’s reported collection amount of 11 kg per capita is second only to Germany, but this recycling rate is partly due to the UK’s far higher consumption of clothing and textiles than any other EU country.

To reflect these differences, the European Clothing Action Plan report on textile collection in European cities proposed that recycling-collection rates should be viewed in relation to consumption rates. Thus, to close the material loop and create an effective recycling system for all textile waste, not only must garment recycling become more widely adopted but the production and consumption of garments must be slowed.

Slow fashion is the future

The cost pressure and level of competition in the fashion industry remain very high, making it difficult to change business practices. Yet, it is essential that the industry as a whole (from fibre production to retail) takes responsibility for its environmental impacts, including water, energy and chemical use, CO2 emissions and waste production.

Minimizing and mitigating these impacts, however, requires change, which businesses are often opposed to for a multitude of reasons, first and foremost being economic. For instance, investment in the latest pollution-control technology is an essential requirement for the short-term future of the textile industry, necessary to remove chemicals, heavy metals and other toxic substances from waste streams.

Yet, using cleaner processes will increase production costs, a cost that is ultimately borne by the consumers, potentially ending cheap and fast fashion, leading to economic declines within the fashion industry.

However, streamlining industrial processes, including a reduction in the numbers of chemicals used, might also save costs in manufacture, providing economic incentives to implement more sustainable practices.

Similarly, creative business models built on proactive design act to reduce waste, avoid surplus production and, thereby, creating a more stable business environment.

Slow fashion is the future. However, we need a new system-wide understanding of how to transition towards such a model, requiring creativity and collaboration between designers and manufacturers, various stakeholders and end consumers. We need new system-level understanding on how to make the transition towards better sustainable balance in the fashion industry.

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