Slow Fashion Season

So it turns out #slowfashionseason has begun! As ever I'm the last to know about such things but I think it's so important to chat about slow fashion. I'm a former charity shop manager and that's hugely influenced my buying choices (why buy new when you can reduce, reuse and recycle am I right?!) but until I watched The True Cost and started to get educated I didn't realise the true impact of my former impulse buying.

Lately our society has seen a huge focus upon self education and putting a spotlight on the things we don't, or choose not to, see. I strongly believe the fashion industry is another area we need to educate ourselves about. Here are a couple of reasons why:

🖤 The fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world.
🖤 In most of the main textile producing countries, untreated toxic wastewater from factories (containing substances such as lead, mercury and arsenic)  is poured directly into rivers. This is incredibly harmful to aquatic life and the millions of those living by those river banks. Fertilisers used for cotton production are also extremely hazardous and polluting.
🖤 The fashion industry also is a major water consumer - up to 20,000 litres of fresh water are used to produce one kilo of cotton, and up to 200 tons of water per ton of dyed fabric. This shocking and unsustainable consumption level causes consequences including  the desertification of the Aral sea.
🖤 "85% of the daily needs in water of the entire population of India would be covered by the water used to grow cotton in the country. 100 million people in India do not have access to drinking water." - Stephen Leahy
🖤 Garment worker employment conditions are still terrible - workers average 14-16 hours, 96 hour working weeks, working in unsafe buildings and subject to potential consequences including abuse, being denied breaks or a drink of water, or paid overtime.
🖤 It is estimated that up to 90% of discarded clothing ends up in landfill - the UK alone sends approximately 350,000 tonnes each year.

Despite knowing all of this, there are still times when I've slipped and gone off the rails by buying something new. I want to make some changes for slow fashion season so I'm going to educate myself on greenwashing and buy nothing unnecessary unless it is secondhand or genuinely sustainable. Are you joining in with #slowfashionseason? 🐌