Stop Fast Fashion! 👕

If you don't know what fast fashion is, it's when mainstream companies sell trendy clothing at a cheap price. And then, because the actual clothing is cheap and not made to last, you wear it once or twice and then throw it into landfill (for those people who don't give to charity shops). The fashion industry is a major part of the greenhouse gasses polluting the Earth. 53 million tonnes of fibres are used to make clothes and textiles and, to make matters worse, 75% of it is burned or sent to landfill, according to reports. Also, when you wash synthetic materials like polyester, you are, I'm afraid, contributing to plastic pollution: about 700,000 man-made fibres flow into the sea and are consumed by fish in a single wash.

This fact really surprised me: equivalent to more than 50 billion plastic bottles, clothes unleash around about half a million tonnes of plastic fibres into the ocean every year.

Cheaper clothes are often made abroad in factories that are unsafe and give their workers low wages. And in these factories, a lot of energy can be used to meet demands and shortcuts can be made which are bad for the environment.

What can you do to help?

• Instead of buying brand new clothes you can go to charity shops and re-use clothes that people have become bored of. You can also send your old clothes to charity shops for someone else.
•  If your clothes are ripped or something you could take the time to try to mend it by sewing, however I understand sewing can be hard for people.
• Don't buy cheap new clothes to go with the trends.  You could even do the #30wears campaign where you are encouraged to only buy something you know you'll where at least 30 times.

Thank you for reading this blog about fast fashion and clothes. I got all these facts from: Teen Breathe special, Earth-Saving Acts for Eco-Warriors. See you next week!

Violet

         xxx