In the last few decades, few innovations have rocked the garment world more than the introduction of fast fashion. To keep pace with the insatiable consumerism of our ever more connected world, the clothing industry has redefined itself to offer half rate slop designed to keep you fat, happy, and spending. Fast fashion is a business model intended to churn out inexpensive, low-quality clothes at an inexorable rate. Big name brands such as Zara, H&M, Shien, and Nike rapidly produce cheap clothing to cater to each new trend, supplying a huge variety of flashy styles and affordable clothing to every corner of the globe. Through this, they encourage consumers to buy more and more, wearing clothes only a couple of times before dumping them into landfills to make space for more purchasing. These companies sustain these practices through the exploitation of developing countries and at the cost of the environment. By taking advantage of a consumerist society and a focus on being fresh and new, their ruthlessly effective tactics overwhelm the market and drown out the cries of the workers they abuse.
The environmental costs of fashion are enormous. According to EARTH.ORG, the fashion industry creates 10% of total global carbon emissions, as much as the emissions generated by the entire European Union. The extraction of natural resources for materials, the production in factories, and washing and dyeing fabrics all contribute to pollution. Dyes and chemicals pollute the water, factories and transport release emissions, and discarded clothing waste fills landfills and clogs rivers. The clothing industry is harmful in every aspect. To be created so cheaply, these clothes are often made using synthetic fibres that are energy intensive to create and difficult to get rid of. These microfibres are not biodegradable and end up in the ocean, dumps, or people’s bodies. As the EU claims, textile production accounts for nearly 20% of all water pollution. Around 500,000 tons of plastic fibres from clothing end up in the ocean each year, equivalent to 50 billion plastic bottles. The fast fashion business model of discarding clothes almost as quickly as you buy them is incredibly wasteful, harmful, and unsustainable, as over 92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced each year. Not only is the waste and pollution egregious, it also disproportionately affects lower-income countries. According to the EU, 84.7% of the environmental impacts of the industry take place outside the EU, mainly in Asia. By exploiting workers and labour laws in Southeast Asian countries, companies build their factories, dump chemicals, and discard waste in places like Cambodia, where most of the consequences of their pollution are felt. All throughout Cambodia, cast-offs from assembly lines are burnt in kilns, contributing to the air pollution problem and exposing workers to toxins.
The cornerstone of the fast fashion industry is its ability to cut costs at every turn, and its chief method of achieving this is by taking advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. Most major manufacturers outsource their labor to places like Cambodia due to their lax labor laws and cheap costs. In these countries, workers face harsh working conditions, abysmal pay, horrible hours, and little to no legal protection. In 2013, a garment manufacturing complex collapsed in Bangladesh, killing over 1000 people and injuring countless others. The disaster came about when the managers ignored safety warnings and disregarded the lives of their workers.
The garment industry is one of the largest in Cambodia, employing hundreds of thousands and being the country's biggest export. From a Cambodian report, many people work 12-hour shifts 6 days a week with terrible pay and working conditions. These workers are exploited by famous companies around the world to produce textiles year round, suffering from this country’s poor worker protection and labour laws. Surveys suggest that the salaries of approximately 700,000 Khmer workers are not enough to live on, and the Asia Floor Wage Alliance claims that the monthly wage in 2017 of $153 is only half of what a livable wage should be. Needless to say, Cambodia as a whole suffers from the toxic, consumerist, and overproducing practices of the world and is forced to carry a lot of the burden from environmental impacts and worker abuse.
So, what can you do about it? You don’t have to stop buying clothes entirely, rather, it is important to be more mindful of your purchasing and less wasteful of your belongings. Don’t buy into the whole craze of wearing a new outfit every day and buying every new clothing collection that gets released. By acting more considerately about where you buy clothes and how you use them, you can reduce your individual impact on the environment. Furthermore, by buying slightly more expensive but higher quality and longer lasting clothing, you save money in the long run on replacements for it. Additionally, more action needs to be taken at the industry and government levels. This is a global issue, and steps must be taken to protect workers and the environment, as well as to shift our society away from overconsuming and unsustainable practices. Fast fashion is harmful and dangerous, and in the end, being more sustainable is the only solution.
Writers note: If any of this interests you, there is such a vast quantity of information about this topic that I was only able to barely scratch the surface. It would be great if you researched this in your own time to learn more about this issue and what you can do about it.
Bibliography: Kelleher, Dylan. “Fast Fashion.” Www.britannica.com, Britannica, 9 Oct. 2023, www.britannica.com/art/fast-fashion Maiti, Rashmila. “The Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion, Explained.” Earth.org, Earth.org, 20 Jan. 2025, earth.org/fast-fashions-detrimental-effect-on-the-environment/ Rauturier, Solene. “What Is Fast Fashion and Why Is It so Bad?” Good on You, 7 Aug. 2023, goodonyou.eco/what-is-fast-fashion/Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. “Cambodian Garment Workers Stay Poor While Dressing the West | DW | 03.03.2017.” DW.COM, www.dw.com/en/cambodian-garment-workers-stay-poor-while-dressing-the-west/a-37796952 Wohlgemuth, Viola. “Cambodia Workers Pay the Price of Fast Fashion’s Supply Chain Waste Problem.” Greenpeace International, 11 Aug. 2022, www.greenpeace.org/international/story/55134/cambodia-workers-pay-the-price-of-fast-fashions-supply-chain-waste-problem/.