Ultra-fast and awful fashion

According to a United Nations report, the fashion industry is among the world's biggest polluters. It produces 8% to 10% of all global CO2 emissions and is responsible for 20% of global water consumption. It takes 10,000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of cotton for a pair of jeans, as much as a person can drink in about 10 years!

Add to this the problems arising from the use of chemicals, including the infamous PFAS, and microplastics (read polyester) in the manufacture of clothing. All these substances end up in the soil, groundwater, seas and oceans, and thus in our bodies. If we also consider the working conditions in many Asian textile factories, the picture is rather disturbing.

This was also testified to by the report by Greenpeace Germany (> Greenpeace International ), which investigated the practices implemented by SHEIN , the Chinese queen of ultra-fast fashion. This was followed by Shein's clumsy attempt to clean up its image by inviting a number of US influencers to its factories, with less than positive results.

Documenting impacts

I take my cue from a docuseries recently released in Italy to reiterate what has now come out of numerous investigations and reports. (The series is Junk - Armadi pieni, Matteo Ward is the host and one of the authors together with WR?D , Will Media and Sky Italia . It's available in Italian also on YouTube - Soon in English?)

In the port of Iquique, Chile, container ships arrive non-stop full of second-hand clothes and accessories, or simply returned by customers after purchase. Clothes for adults, children, summer or winter, compressed in 45 kg bales sold at 4.5 euro to small local traders who hope to find resaleable clothes in the local market to keep their families going.

A real distorted subsistence economy that demonstrates the complexity and bitter implications of the current system.

What is unsaleable, the scraps of waste, end up in the Atacama desert. Hills of clothes piled up, much of it now covered with sand by the local government to cope with the numerous fires that have broken out on these heaps and the shortage of water.

At the Kantamanto Market in Accra, Ghana, 15 million clothes are counted every day. Initially they were called Obroni wawu, i.e.

"The dead white man's clothes."

According to local custom, clothes were only discarded after a person's death. Hard to imagine that instead all that stuff came from the wardrobes full of living, breathing people and compulsive buying. (You can find a nice multimedia project on the very concept of Obroni wawu here - by Linda Valkeman ).

If we take a step back towards production we arrive in Bangladesh, where things have not changed much compared to 10 years ago when the Rana Plaza collapse claimed over 1,000 lives.

Extremely low wages, poor working conditions, poor regulations and the absence of state controls rank this country first in the world for the worst working conditions according to the Global Right Index.

Abuses also occur in Indonesia and India for the production of viscose and cotton respectively.

Entire forests are sacrificed and taken away from the Sumatran population to make way for intensive monocultures of eucalyptus, from whose cellulose viscose is made.

Indian farmers are now being put in check by big chemical companies like Monsanto. Forced to buy back every season genetically modified seeds that increase the harvest three or four times, but cannot be replanted the following year. Margins thin out until they become unsustainable debts that lead to suicide in thousands of documented cases over the years.

In Europe, one of the most significant problems is PFAS pollution, as shown by the investigation published by Le Monde and other media partners.

Some paradoxes demonstrate the absurdity of the system.

Jeans put on the market washed out to satisfy the tastes of western customers (at a high price also for the environment) that when they arrive in Ghana are recoloured by hand with indigo because otherwise, so reduced, no one would buy them.

Children rummaging through scraps and waste of all kinds to earn some money, dreaming of buying the very designer clothes that are at the root of the devastation of their land.

Untangling the skein

On 5 July, the European Commission voted in favour of a directive calling for manufacturers to be made responsible for the entire life cycle of textile products through an instrument called EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility).

Brands will have to pay a fee for each product created to be allocated to textile waste management, higher if the fabric used is not degradable or recyclable. The European Commission proposal also wants to make it illegal to export textile waste to countries that are unable to handle and dispose of it.

Some states are already moving on their own to tackle the textile problems. The Netherlands has already made Extended Producer Responsibility its own by defining precise indicators to monitor reuse and recycling. At least 50% of the garments sold will have to be designed for reuse and/or recycling.

The French government has just announced the 'bonus réparation' ('mending bonus') which will allow people to claim a bonus of between 6 and 25 euros every time they choose to have a garment mended at a participating tailor's or shoemaker's shop instead of throwing it away.

The role of companies

The Cascale , a global alliance that aims to 'develop sustainable solutions that redefine the industry', has long been in existence. Within it there are companies that make fast fashion the reason for their success (such as Inditex and H&M) for which it is difficult to expect rapid progress.

Among the other companies there is also Patagonia , champion of sustainability for the planet (I also wrote about it in a previous issue of this newsletter), which in recent weeks has been the subject of a journalistic investigation carried out by Follow the Money EU (here is their post).

The accusation, rather sensational, is that they produce in the same factories that work for fast fashion brands. In its reply, Patagonia wants to make it clear that it cannot change the rules of a global sector on its own, and that being part of the system and sourcing from those very countries that do not offer particular guarantees to workers, is the only way to advance the safety conditions and wages of those who work in those factories.

It would certainly serve to increase the level of transparency on the policies and practices implemented in the sector and the impacts on human rights and the environment. This is what the Fashion Transparency Index - edited by Fashion Revolution - monitors every year. The latest 2023 report confirms that companies are still doing little in this regard.

EU and national legislation can speed up the process. We as citizens and consumers can support and sign petitions such as the Good Clothes Fair Play petition to urge the European Commission to introduce legislation to increase guarantees for those working in the clothing, textile and footwear industries.

But above all, we can adopt more sustainable consumer behaviour and show that the white man is alive and responsible.

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Hello ! I am Antonio Di Bacco, a?business consultant?who guide companies and institutions on their journey towards environmental, social and economic sustainability through results-oriented marketing strategies.

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