Fast Fashion: Why Cheap Clothes Cost the Planet
Some big clothing stores now put out brand-new styles every single week, and a t-shirt might cost less than a slice of pizza. That sounds amazing, right? But here is a surprising fact: people around the world throw away about 92 million tons of clothing every year, enough to fill a garbage truck every single second. This speedy, super-cheap way of making and tossing clothes has a name: fast fashion. Let's find out why those bargain shirts come with a hidden price tag for the Earth.
What You'll Learn
By the end of this lesson you will be able to: - Explain what "fast fashion" means in your own words - Describe two ways cheap clothes can hurt the environment - List three things you can do to make your clothes last longer - Design a plan to keep one piece of clothing out of the trash
What Is Fast Fashion?
Fast fashion means making huge amounts of trendy clothing very quickly and very cheaply, so stores can sell new looks all the time. Instead of four clothing seasons a year, some brands release 52 or more. Because the clothes are so cheap, people often wear them only a few times and then toss them to buy the next new thing. The word fast is the key: fast to make, fast to buy, and fast to throw away.
The Thirsty T-Shirt
Clothes need a lot of water to make. One cotton t-shirt takes about 700 gallons of water to grow the cotton and make the fabric. That is roughly enough drinking water for one person for 900 days. Many clothes are also made from a plastic-based fabric called polyester. Every time polyester clothes are washed, they shed tiny plastic threads called microfibers that flow down the drain and end up in rivers and oceans, where fish can swallow them.
Mountains of Thrown-Away Clothes
When clothes are tossed, most do not turn back into soil. Polyester can take 200 years or more to break down in a landfill. Whole deserts, like the Atacama in Chile, now have giant piles of unwanted clothing dumped from other countries. The good news? Clothes that are reused, repaired, or handed down keep all that water and work from being wasted. A shirt worn twice as long has about half the impact on the planet.
Around the world, the equivalent of one full garbage truck of textiles is burned or buried EVERY second. Wearing clothes longer and passing them on are two of the easiest ways to shrink that pile.
Match each fast-fashion fact to what it means.
Terms
Definitions
Drag terms onto their definitions, or click a term then click a definition to match.
What does "fast fashion" mostly describe?
Which choice does the MOST to reduce fast fashion's harm to the planet?
Rescue One Piece of Clothing
1. Find one shirt or piece of clothing in your home that someone was about to throw away. 2. Write down WHY it was going to be tossed (too small? a hole? boring?). 3. Pick a way to give it a new life: hand it to a younger kid, sew or patch the hole, turn it into a cleaning rag, or donate it. 4. Make a small poster showing the clothing 'before' and your rescue plan 'after.' 5. Share your poster and challenge one family member to rescue a piece too.
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