Disposable Fashion Is Growing, and It’s Hell on the Environment

Photo: Disposable clothing is part of a trend toward fast fashion, in which companies market an ever-changing array of apparel based on 50 to 100 “micro seasons” a year.

One response is sustainably conscious and “circularly” produced clothing.

When she was younger, Katherine Nation recalls going on shopping binges at Forever 21 and H&M to spend all the cash she’d received on Christmas or her birthday. Now an eighteen-year-old student, Nation considers herself a conscious shopper, who repairs and sews her own clothes and repurposes remnants of clothing. It was a semester-long college project that made her aware of how massive amounts of cheap clothing are impacting people and the environment.

“I was a little bit conscious before, but not enough so as to really act on it.” she says. “The gravity of the situation hadn’t hit me ‘til this project.”

Nation, in her research, learned about the rise of “fast fashion”—the production of cheap, ubiquitous, and ever-changing clothing. Rapidly copying and discarding new fashion trends, fast fashion creates the appeal of cutting-edge chic for as little as $5 a garment, made possible through cheap, exploitative labor. Some of this clothing is meant to be used only once or twice.

From 2000 to 2014, the number of clothing items […]

Full article: Disposable Fashion Is Growing Exponentially, and It’s Hell on the Environment