Fast fashion is a business model in which companies produce as many clothing items as cheaply as possible. The recent online trend of flaunting suggests that it’s not going away.

A $10 t-shirt may seem like a bargain, but it’s worth considering how much it costs to make one.

Buzz McDonald Re: News

It’s probably part of fast fashion, where companies sell as many clothes as possible at the lowest prices by manufacturing in countries with more relaxed employment laws.

This can have human rights and environmental implications every step of the way, starting with the farm where the cotton for that shirt was grown.

China produces the world’s largest cotton. Twenty percent of that he is from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where the Uyghur community is forced to work on farms.

The true extent of this and other human rights and environmental issues is unknown due to the lack of transparency within the industry.

Tearfund’s 2021 Ethical Fashion Report found that 87% of businesses don’t know where their fabrics come from, and only 71% don’t even know where they’re manufactured.

What we do know is that garment workers often work 10 to 16 hours a day, six days a week, for almost a third of the living wage in their country.

There are 65 million garment workers in the Asia-Pacific region, most of whom are women.

It is estimated that 40% of garments imported into New Zealand in 2019 were made using forced and child labor.

Tier fund advocacy expert Morgan Theakston traveled to Bangladesh to interview factory workers of popular brands.

The worker said her verbal abuse and child labor were common in these factories.

“[They told us] Whenever buyers or compliance officers visited the factory, they made all the children invisible, and supervisors yelled at them when they made mistakes. “

Landfills are overflowing with $10 T-shirts

As fast fashion became popular, the amount of clothing increased dramatically. It is currently estimated that 80 billion garments are produced worldwide each year.

Fast fashion has created a culture of frivolity and extravagance around clothes, Saixton said.

People store clothes for half as long as they did 20 years ago, and it’s estimated that two-thirds of the clothes produced each year end up in landfills.

Approximately 35 million kilograms of clothing are dumped in New Zealand each year, accounting for 9% of Auckland’s landfill and is expected to rise to 14% by 2040.

In addition to waste, the slow decomposition of clothing also creates a large amount of emissions.

New Zealand’s aggregate fiber waste is equivalent to 144,770 flights between Auckland and London.

Theakston says:

So when considering whether to buy that T-shirt, think about how much it’s really worth.

first published renews.co.nz.

Re: creates videos, articles and podcasts that address issues that matter to young people in New Zealand. You can see more stories on their website.