STAYING STYLISH WHILE SHOPPING SUSTAINABLY

For a lot of young people, they’re going out to discos again, getting ready for balls, Communions and Confirmations are coming up, meeting friends for lunch or coffee and just generally, are back socialising after many lockdowns. However, what comes with that is… shopping!

I’m going to offer you some advice over the course of the next few weeks on ‘sustainable shopping’, as you look to dress up for all these different events again.

FIRSTLY, WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING?

To answer that, I need to tell you about fast fashion! Fashion is now one of the most globalised industries and has a huge, and often negative environmental impact. A single product may span multiple continents and travel across the globe before reaching the shop floors in Ireland.

Before the clothes we buy even get to the final destination i.e. fashion outlets, the production of clothing uses up a lot of land, water, energy, chemicals, and produces too much waste. It is estimated, according to Fashion Revolution (a movement to make the fashion industry one that is equitable and fair), that 400 billion sq metres of textiles are made annually. Bear in mind, it takes 2,720 litres of water to make a single t-shirt - that’s how much we normally drink over a 3 year period!

EXPLOITATION

In countries like India and China, workers are being unjustly exploited for cheap labour. They are forced to work inhumane hours, in cruel conditions, with very little say, unfair pay and very few other options.

Many people in Ireland say that they are feminists, who believe in the basic equality of all genders, but women and girls are most harmed by this industry that many of us buy into. In Guangdong in China, young women face 150 hours of overtime each month, 60% have no contract and 90% have no access to social insurance. This system impacts women’s access to quality education, to having a voice, to resting, to having equal opportunities and is simply, undeniably, a violation of women’s rights!

It hurts the local people too, not just the workers in these vile factories. Growing the fibres for our clothes, processing, dying and treating garments requires a cocktail of chemicals, some known to be toxic that are contaminating waters with certain rivers in China having turned red due to the process involved.

Then, clothes are shipped or flown to the other side of the planet, with carbon emissions that pollute our planet – a contributor to the climate crisis. This is leading to more frequent and devastating natural disasters, such as typhoons, storms, droughts and so on (particularly in poorer countries still feeling the impacts of colonisation e.g. in the Philippines and Kenya).

FOUR SEASONS?

Finally, the clothes are displayed in the shops you know and love or stocked in warehouses for online shopping websites. Yet, the problem does not stop there however. Many people purchase clothes wastefully due to constantly changing trends, to avoid repeating outfits, because of smart marketing, etc.

In the past, there were just 4 fashion seasons. Can you guess what they were? Yes, Winter, Summer, Spring and Autumn because as the weather changed, so did the clothes you needed. Even at that, most people rarely bought new clothes and re-wore last year’s winter wardrobe, rather than buy a whole new one this year!

LANDFILL

In the last 15 years clothing production has approximately doubled. In the same time, the number of times garments are worn has decreased by 36%.

An industry that is producing this much, is obviously going to be producing a huge amount of waste too. Around 300,000 tons of used clothes go to landfill in the UK every year. Landfill is the disposal of waste material by burying it. Our world’s rubbish is taking over land and littering our oceans in a time when we need to be protecting nature, giving it space to flourish and taking care of our marine life, rather than feeding it plastic that, if ingested, could kill wildlife. Landfills also disrupt local communities, often in poorer areas of the globe.

Meanwhile, we think about the next skirt we want to buy at the same time as we throw one away.

‘WHO MADE MY CLOTHES?’

One of the most devastating stories that illustrates the truth behind the clothing industry, occurred in Bangladesh. On 24 April 2013, the Rana Plaza building collapsed. 1,138 people died and another 2,500 were injured, making it the fourth largest industrial disaster in history.

Since then, people from all over the world have come together to use the power of fashion to change the world. Fashion Revolution is now a global movement of people, like you, telling a different story about the clothes we wear and asking, ‘Who made my clothes?’.

The purpose of this article isn’t to make readers feel guilty or bad because clearly, fast fashion is no one person’s fault. It is a huge industry that we need to uproot and replace. However, systems like this one operate with loads of people taking small, sometimes subconscious actions to prop up that system, so you also have the power to make individual changes to dismantle it!

I hope you have learned about fast fashion and over the course of upcoming articles, I’ll be writing about my sustainable fashion tips and advice. Sustainable fashion isn’t just about buying from really expensive ‘ sustainable’ brands online or charity shopping, there’s so many different ways to shop sustainably that I’m sure there’ll be a combination of ways that suit your needs and desires!

So, let’s all take action to stay stylish, in outfits that are ethical and more eco-friendly!