Importance of Sustainable Fashion and Conscious Shopping
When it comes to the environment, the most harmful and polluting industry is the oil and Gas exploration. A Close second comes our own Fashion Industry!*
There’s a reason why. Fashion doesn’t stay still. It’s constantly evolving and changing, which means that brands need to constantly update their line and products to stay in style. Which means more waste and thousands of garments that are never even worn? Not only that, do you know that every single garment we wear today has to be disposed off into some landfill since it’s not bio-degradable? Let alone the polyester threads polluting the land.
Why Sustainable Fashion is Important
If we keep on going at this pace, in no time we will not find a place on earth that is pollution free. It is high time we become conscious of fashion and its implication. It’s time to change the scenario, with sustainable fashion! Here are the top 4 reasons why sustainable fashion matters in 2019.
It helps the environment
The single biggest reason that sustainable fashion matters is to help the environment. Currently, it takes 400-600 gallons of water to produce a single t-shirt. For a pair of jeans, this goes up to 1,800 gallons.
And that’s just producing it. It’s not to mention how a t-shirt can travel up to 3,500km before it ever ends up in someone’s wardrobe. Just imagine the fuel cost of the transport that is mostly though ships that are polluting our oceans.
Organic Clothing
Anything that sustainable fashion can do to lower these numbers reduces the stress that they’re putting on the environment. Being conscious of what you wear, how it is made and how its getting disposed off makes us accountable of our fashion carbon footprint. Knowing your fashion footprint is a bigger step towards conscious fashion.
Want to do more to help? Don’t throw your old clothes away – find a local recycling centre in your area or donate them. Better yet, try reusing your old clothes in newer ways. Try up-cycling them into household items, bags and other clothes.
It provides better working conditions
To compete with heavy sales prices and consumers who want their fashion as cheap as possible, a lot of industries cut costs where they can.
Which means outsourcing their “labour” overseas, where horrible violations of human rights are allowed. This includes overworking staff for little to no pay, terrible working conditions, lack of safety and protection, extortion and assaults. These same places sometimes can also employ children. Think about this the next time you want to grab yourself a bargain!
It’s better to know who is making your clothes and stick to sustainable fashion to avoid causing terrible suffering to another human being. This is why the “Fashion Revolution Week” came into picture. An initiative of “Who made my clothes” was recently started by the Fashion Revolution Campaign. This was done to give importance to those workers who are involved in creation of a product from a particular brand. Many small brands came up with disclosing their craftsman and workers on Social media and sharing their pictures. This was a small initiative to make awareness regarding all those nameless people working behind every single garment made in the fashion Industry.
It helps save the animals
Even though it’s rare to find real fur and crocodile skin purses nowadays, that doesn’t mean they’re completely gone from the market. In fact, sometimes fur is completely mis-labelled.
It’s cheaper for some companies to produce real fur products than faux-fur, so they’ll label it as fake. But, unfortunately, an animal had to die to make that product. Even while you’re unaware of it. Would you want to be a part of this crime?
Many brands still use animal products in their fashion range. This includes one of fashion’s biggest animal products – leather. Animals are specially bred, caged and killed for the fashion industry. It’s harsh, brutal and definitely not worth it. Lot of cosmetic industry still uses animal testing and animal products in their products.
Reuse your Denim
It proves to big industries what’s important
If customers start buying sustainable, it proves to brands what is important. Which means, aiding the fight towards cruelty-free garments that are made from more sustainable means, with fair pay to its workers.
Luckily, there are a lot of brands who have already begun the change towards sustainable fashion. For example, ASOS has achieved a 12% reduction in the carbon footprint of its UK products since 2012. By supporting brands that are fashion conscious we are doing our bit to tell the world to move towards sustainability.
And there you have it. That should be enough reasons to help you understand why Sustainable Fashion is so important – and why you should put more thought into where you shop and who makes your clothes!
