Fast fashion is a mainline motorway of the world’s linear economy.
The current landscape of clothing production is detailed in a report produced in association with War on Want: Fashioning the Future.
Behind the brands’ shiny-shopfront face of fashion is an opaque supply chain involving poor conditions both for workers and their wider environments. As well as the environmental burden of waste, the industry places pressure on its workers to provide long hours for undignified wages.
Worn out clothes are materially much the same as new items, and so fashion seems an industry ripe for circularity. But private recycling companies export clothes, for example, over 300 million items of damaged or unsellable clothing made of synthetic or plastic fibres are sent to Kenya, where they are dumped or burned.
Aside from the ecological impact of waste and polluting biproducts, fashion supports economic inequality, with garment makers paid as little as 15 pence per item.
You can read the report – packed with facts and infographics – at War on Want’s website, here, or in full as a PDF, here.
If you’re in reach of London, you can show your support for 1,134 victims of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, 11 years ago. Meet at Soho Square, 18:15 24 April 2024. Please find more information here.
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