Fast fashion can be categorized as a business model, where the company replicates recent fashion or catwalk trends and produces them in mass quantities with low cost. Fast fashion started to develop in late 1990s and early 2000s as young generations started to innovate new fashion trends.
This business model is considered high in profit because the company will bring their product to their retail stores while the demand of the trend is at its highest. That’s why, fast fashion business model can be called as a fast-paced business model, because they are often seen to launch new product lines in a very brief period of time.
Environmental Cost of Fast Fashion
Fast fashion costs a lot on the environment. It causes a lot of pollution, waste, and emission that affects climate change. If the production of clothing in general is environmentally destructive, shouldn’t the entire fashion industry be considered harmful to the environment? How is fast fashion specifically linked to the worsening climate change?
The mass production of fast fashion is the most destructive effect on the environment, which later will play a big part in climate change. It needs 2.700 liters (5.400 bottles) of water to produce a t-shirt and 10.000 liters (20.000 bottles) of water to produce jeans. In the production of clothing, the company needs to use tons of plastic fibers, toxic dyes, and other chemical substances which later will cause wastewater which is likely to flow into all waterways throughout the city.
Cope With The Environmental Impact of Fashion Industry
However, as the awareness of the negative environmental impact of fashion production spreads, there are some ways to cope with the impact.
- The emerge of sustainable clothes
Recently, fast fashion brands are starting to be aware of the environmental harms caused by their business model that made some of the brands launch their sustainable, or better known as ‘eco-friendly’ product lines.
- Thrifting trend
Thrifting trends are growing rapidly as years go by. Besides the cheap price with good condition, thrifted clothes also give pretty much an impact on coping with the negative environmental impact of the fashion industry. Some thrift shop owners even offer reworked used clothes, which makes thrifted clothes more unique and exclusive.
Read also : Climate Change Affects Animal Welfare in Multifaceted Ways
- Society awareness of environmental care
The awareness of environmental care has done a great overall effect to make our earth liveable. A lot of people with environmental care awareness have decided to buy less clothes in order to cope with the negative effects of the fashion industry.
