In this story, you learn:
- Cost of ‘fast fashion’ for environment is becoming increasingly high. Millennials are turning into modest lifestyle.
- “Today’s society just seem to wear clothes like condoms. They wear them once and they throw them away.”
- Globally, clothing production doubled from 2000-14, with the number of garments bought each year by consumers soaring by 60%,
Source: The Times of India
SYDNEY: In a small shop along one of Sydney’s busiest streets, Sarah Freeman is encouraging Australians to slow down and break their addiction to fast fashion.
Shocked by the speed at which Australians buy and throw away cheap garments, she is trying to harness an ancient concept – libraries – to persuade shoppers to rent instead of purchase clothes.
“Today’s society just seem to wear clothes like condoms. They wear them once and they throw them away,” she told AFP at her Clothes Library. “That’s not how clothes are supposed to be designed. The clothes nowadays are manufactured for six wears, I think, which is terrible.”
Globally, clothing production doubled from 2000-14, with the number of garments bought each year by consumers soaring by 60%, according to McKinsey & Company. A booming part of the industry, including in Australia, is fast fashion, which quickly turns catwalk designs into apparel sold at ultra-low prices and easily accessible via online.
In Australia, where the demand for textiles is one of the highest per capita in the world, the fast fashion sector grew by 19.5% over five years to Aus$1.8 billion (US$1.4 billion) in 2017-18, IBISWorld reported. A recent YouGov survey also found that almost a quarter of Australians have thrown away an item of clothing after wearing it just once, and four in 10 people admitted they had binned unwanted garments, adding to landfill. The rock bottom prices for consumers contrast with the high cost paid by the environment.
Tonnes of cheap clothes are churned out every year in developing countries, using up energy and resources and polluting waterways near factories with toxic chemicals. The materials are synthetic and non-biodegradable, and even washing can be hazardous, with some textiles shedding plastic micro-fibres that make their way to water catchments and oceans.
Read more @ The Times of India