Sustainable Fashion Resolutions for This Earth Day and Beyond
The global phenomenon of trendy, fast fashion and discarding pieces of clothing after one use has overfilled landfills, completely overwhelmed our oceans with plastic, and abused marginalized communities across the globe with little to nothing pay. But you know who can help stop such practices? You and I, aka the consumer.
Below, we offer three meaningful fashion resolutions that will make you a wiser consumer and a more conscious human, this Earth Day and beyond.
Choose Sustainability
We have heard the reports, we have read the warnings from the global scientific community: Planet Earth is at a tipping point and if we don’t act now, we are quite literally doomed. And the fashion industry is one of the major polluters in the world. In fact, it is the second largest polluter in the world, just after the oil industry. The production and distribution of the crops, fibers, and garments used in fashion all contribute to environmental pollution, including water, air, and soil pollution. And we are not even talking about the landfills filled with unsold or discarded garments. So when making purchasing decisions this year, and beyond, why not choose sustainable brands? Of course, I have to be honest here and mention that there’s no such thing such as “100 percent eco-friendly clothing” because all garments have at least some negative impact on the environment — but if we as consumers support the brands who are working diligently to help make a difference, it will have an impact. Every little bit helps. A few favorite ethical fashion brands include Rothy’s, Cuyana, Patagonia, Stella McCartney, Everlane and Reformation, but you can also read this post for our favorite sustainable fashion brands.
Stop Buying Fast Fashion
Fast fashion, or high street fashion, includes brands like Zara, H&M, Forever21, ASOS, Shein, and Bershka that offer trendy clothing for a low price. But not only is the garments’ quality subpar, their environmental impact is catastrophic. They produce too much, dump unsold garments in landfills, lure with a low-price-trendy-fashion two-punch, and essentially enable the consumer to spend more and more. Which needs to stop. That “more is more” mentality also leads to more pollution of our beautiful oceans — a single synthetic garment can generate more than 1900 micro plastic fibres in one washing machine cycle. And that’s just scratching the surface. In the past decade, fast fashion grew more than 10 percent and globally, we now consume about 80 billion new pieces of clothing every year—400% more than we were consuming just two decades ago.
Fast fashion also violates human rights protection laws by employing cheep labor in third world countries, who produce 24 collections per year (Zara) and between 12 and 16 collections per year (H&M). According to an April 2016 Oxfam report, more than 60 million people work in the garment industry to fuel fast fashion: more than 15 million of those are based in Asia and more than 80 percent are women, often young and from poor rural backgrounds. I hope those are enough reasons to stop supporting this awful industry.
Lessen Your Fashion Carbon Footprint
There are a few ways to do that: Buy less and wear longer, mend your clothes (especially shoes and jeans), opt-in for closet-sharing, and buy used clothing. Whether you choose to practice one of these ways or all, you will significantly lower the number of garments sitting in landfills, infuse new life into gorgeous vintage clothing, and learn to appreciate quality over quantity. It really is that simple.
Happy Earth Day!
