Fast Fashion Industry

Environmental Impacts

Creates Waste

water pollution and energy use

Greenhouse gas emissions

could talk about pollution of water resources in
foreign countries for a story

energy outputs compared to non-fast fashion companies?

Fast fashion is responsible for 5% of GHG emissions

If the fast fashion industry was a country where would it rank in GHG emissions?

The US consumes much of the fast fashion industries products, thus passing on the emissions and negative side effects to other areas of the world

story about the pollution and effect on breathing problems for people

Chemical dyes in clothing often leak into water sources

79 trillion liters of water used each year

So many people in the world are in need of water, the fast fashion industries use of water doesn't help this

20% of global water pollution comes from dyeing textiles

The average garment gets worn only 7 times before being thrown away

is there a comparison I could make to put the size of the waste per year to show readers for context?

Might be a good cover photo for the paper, showing the waste of used clothing

textile waste is 9.5% of all waste in the US each year

How much CO2 does it take just to move all that waste to dumps and dispose of it?

Human Rights Abuse

Consumer Culture

Workers are continually placed in conditions that are wrong and possibly dangerous

Possible story idea to talk about a day in the life of a worker in a fast fashion factory

Research and discuss pay and hourly rates of workers, conditions

Do people in US not care about it because of the low prices or are they just naive and they don't know?

Micro trends from social media have been attributed to fast fashion industry

The biggest persuader to buy things for customers is price

I think recent upticks in consumer culture comes from constant exposure to styles, fads and clothing inspiration via social media

i want to talk about how people can move away from consumer culture, buying things that are sustainable yet timeless in fashion

If this is talked about, end on a note advocating for people to research the sustainability of companies before they buy from them