Fast fashion: what’s wrong with it? What does the phrase mean exactly? And what can we do about it as consumers? Check out our simple guide to how fast fashion is destroying the planet, what needs to change and how you can play an important part in it. Are you a bit confused about fashion and just why so many are causing a fuss over it? We get so many questions on pebble about what is fast, slow and eco fashion, here's our take on the key five questions, with tons of stats and further reading to get you clued up about clothes when it comes to the environment.
1. What Is Fast Fashion?
Fast fashion is the mass production of cheap, poor quality, disposable clothing. To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, the fashion industry churns out a gargantuan 80 billion garments a year - that's over 10 for every person on earth. And 400% more than it produced 20 years ago.
2. How Is Fast Fashion Destroying The Planet?
Fast Fashion And Water. A byproduct from textile factories in countries that produce fast fashion items en masse is untreated toxic wastewater. What’s wrong with it? It contains substances like lead, mercury and arsenic that are extremely harmful to aquatic and human life.
It tends to be dumped directly into rivers. In Bangladesh alone, 22,000 tons of toxic waste from tanneries goes straight into the waterways a year.
It destroys the health of the people and the wildlife who live along the banks and eventually runs into the sea and pollutes that as well.
It can take up to 200 tons of fresh water to dye and finish just one ton of fabric.
The World Health Organisation and UNICEF report that 1 in 3 people do not have access to safe drinking water. That’s 2.2 billion people who are deprived of this scarce and essential resource.
Extinction Rebellion and the UN have also found that 3.6 billion people, almost half the world's population, are at risk of water scarcity at some points during the year.
The fashion industry churns out a gargantuan 80 billion garments a year - that's over 10 for every person on earth"

Fast Fashion Depletes Our Soil and Forests. In order to produce food on planet earth, we need healthy soil and healthy forests. Because both absorb CO2, they are essential for preventing global warming too.

Yet another thing that’s wrong with the fast fashion industry, is that it hurts soil, woodland, and our entire ecosystems

Goats and sheep, raised for their wool, are overgrazed in pastures. Overgrazing leads to soil erosion, land degradation, loss of valuable plant species, food shortages and famine.
Chemicals used in the production of fabrics like cotton also degrade the soil.
Wood-based fibres, like rayon and viscose, cause mass deforestation.
Thousands of hectares of endangered and ancient rainforests are felled every year. They are replaced by plantations of trees used to make wood-based fabrics.
This harms indiginous communities as well as the earth.

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