By Alliance Communications Coordinator Amy Durr
Fashion is said to be a reflection of culture. What does it say about our culture when it endangers the environment and all living things?
The fast fashion industry operates on a “race to the bottom” model to produce the greatest number of garments at the lowest price, according to EarthDay.org. With cheap production, lowered costs and societal pressure to constantly consume clothing, fast fashion’s numbers are staggering:
- 69% of clothes are made from crude oil and washing them accounts for 35% of the ocean’s microplastics
- 100 billion garments made annually
- 87% end up in landfills or incinerators, with only 1% recycled
- Toxic textile processing pollutes freshwater systems, harming connected ecosystems
- Each year 200 million trees are razed for cellulosic fibers, imperiling biodiversity
- Microfibers are in the food chain, our air, our soil and appear deep in our organs and our bloodstreams threatening our existence
This $2.5 trillion industry is shockingly unregulated. Citizens alone cannot change the industry. Government legislation must be implemented now.
EarthDay.org is calling on the current administration to:
- Enact an Extended Producer Responsibility requirement for fashion brands to sustainably dispose of their waste
- Impose a carbon tax on all clothing made from virgin synthetic materials
- Mandate every new clothes washing machine have a filter installed to capture plastic microfibers
- Support an infrastructure and standard systems for consistent, convenient and widespread collection and sorting of used clothing to prevent the waste of 17 millions of tons of textiles in the United States each year
- Force brands to abide by the Fair Trade Commission’s Green Guidelines for accuracy in claims related to sustainability
- Strictly enforce a ban on the importation of clothing made with forced labor, indentured servitude or child labor
Join the Alliance and sign the EarthDay.org letter demanding that the US administration stop protecting an industry that is poisoning us — and start protecting the planet instead.