By Teagan Martin
SHEIN, Temu, and Romwe all have one thing in common: they’re all fast fashion. There are many reasons for people to use fast fashion, however, not all of them are good.
Fast fashion is bad for many different reasons. It contributes to a big amount of pollution in the air and in the ocean.
In the article The Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion by earth.org, the author says, “The Quantis International 2018 report found that the three main drivers of the industry’s global pollution impacts are dyeing and finishing (36%), yarn preparation (28%) and fiber production (15%).”
The report also established that fiber production has the largest impact on fresh water withdrawal (water diverted or withdrawn from a surface water or groundwater source) and ecosystem quality due to cotton cultivation, while the dyeing and finishing, yarn preparation and fiber production stages have the highest impacts on resource depletion, due to the energy-intensive processes based on fossil fuel energy.
The article also says, “According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, emissions from textile manufacturing alone are projected to skyrocket by 60% by 2030.”
This evidence shows how harmful fast fashion can be. However it can also be abusive to their employees.”
In the article Explainer: “What is fast fashion and how can we combat its human rights and environmental impacts?” By Gian Bonnani, Professor Justine Nolan and Samuel Pryde, it’s said, “Since the 1990s, numerous reports of workplace abuse against textile workers has come to light. In labour markets throughout Asia where large corporations manufacture their products—like Bangladesh and China— exploitative working conditions, including discrimination, harassment, child labour, forced labour and unsafe workplaces are not uncommon.”
This demonstrates that fast fashion isn’t only harmful to the environment, but also to the people who have to make it. People get upset when they see wars, animal abuse, child abuse out in the open. So what’s so different about fast fashion? Why would you be ok with young teens and children being forced into labor and being abused and harassed?
Maybe you just want to be trendy. Or you want quick cheap clothes. Maybe a family doesn’t have a lot of money and isn’t able to often get clothes so they resort to these types of websites. Or they could be in a small town with not a lot of stores and shops. What’s important is to not judge them but to inform them on better places to shop.
One alternative is making your own clothes! Making clothes can be fun and creative and you can proudly show your own designs. You don’t even have to learn how to sew to be able to make your own clothes. There are alternatives with tie-dye and bleach and fabric makers on cheap t-shirts that you can just get from dollar tree.
However if you don’t want to make your own clothes there are plenty more different ways to get cheap cute clothes.
There are also different websites, such as Vinted, Depop, and Poshmark, where you can buy clothes. You look for specific styles, brands, sizes, and pieces of clothing. That is also a good alternative because sometimes fast fashion can send the wrong size or they can advertise a certain size and it’s actually smaller.
There are so many different alternatives as well as many reasons to not use fast fashion but we also shouldn’t judge those who do since they may have a reason, just nudge them in the right direction.
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