Being an environmentally present and responsible educational institute, we at the Tribhuvan College, one of the best colleges for environmental science would like to begin today’s blog with a tad bit of sensitization. As citizens residing on this planet, we must know of our actions, which are proving detrimental to the environment and are degrading its natural balance at a rapid rate.

Of course, different triggers are responsible for different environmental concerns. However, our topic of discussion today is “fast fashion”, an issue that needs urgent attention in the 21^st-century fashion-driven world. Let us dive straight in.

What is fast fashion?

Before we go on to discuss the impact of fast fashion on the environment, we need to understand what exactly fast fashion entails.

Well in times, when environment-driven individuals and bodies are aiming to focus on the 3Rs - Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse, Fast fashion attempts to defy this very objective by turning its attention to rapid production and distribution of trendy and easily replaceable clothing.

Even though these clothes make you look stylish, they have a strong and negative environmental impact. Let us see how fast fashion disrupts the environment.

• Burden on Natural Resources:

We at the Tribhuvan College would like to draw your attention to the very fact that fast fashion, which is the production of textiles and clothing relies heavily on natural resources like water, energy, and raw materials.

Since fast fashion requires constant textile production, the burden on natural resources rises to a point where these start showing rapid signs of depletion.

Let us now look at more specific aspects of garment production. Consider cotton-based garments for instance – the entire process in this case is highly water-intensive, making it a red flag towards the prevailing problem of water scarcity.

• Disorganized Waste Management:

Speaking about the ongoing environmental concerns, we cannot but overlook the problem of waste management. Most of you must be well aware of the fact that our landfills are overflowing with waste, as most of the dumped waste is not compostable.

Fast fashion aggravates this issue further as most of this wear usually finds its way to the dump yards after one or in some cases few uses. In general, waste segregation is a herculean task with regard to fast fashion, which only ends up adding criticality to the otherwise serious problem. Hence, turning one’s back on fast fashion is an ideal thing to do.

• Excess Production:

If you think that all fast fashion–related waste results solely from clothing used only once or a few times, we at Tribhuvan College would like to offer you a fresh perspective.

In the present age, we all know how in-demand fast fashion-related products are, which leads to most producers engaging in overproduction of garments. Since the supply in most cases tends to exceed the existing demand, producers and distributors turn to unsustainable practices, one of which is again to dump unused fast fashion products in empty spaces.

Thus, we can say that excess inventory and the environmental problems caused by it are other alarming disadvantages of fast fashion.

• Heavy Reliance on Transportation:

One of the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions being let out in the environment is excess dependence on transportation. This is another problem, which crops up in the case of fast fashion.

The entire supply chain associated with fast fashion, from sourcing inputs to distributing final products, is spread across a widespread geographical region, which leads to dependence on transportation. Increased dependence on transportation indirectly leads to harmful emissions finding their way into the environment, eventually causing environmental problems like air pollution, acid rain, climate change, and global warming. Hence, it is ideal to reduce one’s dependence on fast fashion.

• Usage of Chemicals:

Yet another reason why fast fashion proves harmful to the environment is because it is heavily dependent on the use of chemicals. Right from garment production and dyeing to finishing, all the involved steps require the use of chemicals in one form or another.

These chemicals have a tendency to make their way into the ecosystems, particularly into the water bodies, causing havoc to life on earth. This is another solid reason for preachers of fast fashion to give their choices a second thought and join Tribhuvan College's mission to end dependence on fast fashion.

Conclusion

All this while, if you have been unmindful about the negative impact of fast fashion on the environment, you will have to give this blog a good read. In this blog, we have attempted to list the many negative implications that fast fashion has on this planet. Turning to a capsule wardrobe would be a smarter decision to make.