The Real Cost of Fast Fashion

What gets me is that young people, who are supposed to be so environmentally aware, are the ones buying these clothes, and leaving shed loads of rubbish behind (including tents) at Glastonbury. Maybe the oil activists should spend their time trying to educate their own age group instead of vandalising paintings and blocking roads.

I wouldn't expect an adult (of our age group) to be buying trashy clothes like this.

Some Gransnet members do buy from Shein Chestnut

TBF, I think they are encouraged to leave tents behind at Glastonbury. They are collected and used for the homeless in this country or abroad.

Ooh, chestnut, that is an extremely judgmental post all round.

The production of clothing produces twice as much carbon as shipping and aviation put together.
I’ve been very impressed by Primark as a high percentage of their clothing is from recycling.
It is a dilemma as so many poor countries need this industry.

Probably what they said about children in factories or going up chimneys in this country MerylStreep. If customers stopped buying things would have to change.

kittylester

Ooh, chestnut, that is an extremely judgmental post all round.

Oops, sorry, I was just assuming anything costing £1.50 must be trashy. I haven't actually seen them, but surely it's the youngsters who buy them? And they are the ones who should be thinking of the environment.

kittylester

TBF, I think they are encouraged to leave tents behind at Glastonbury. They are collected and used for the homeless in this country or abroad.

Maybe so, but they leave behind a whole lot more than just tents. Also, I imagine any tent left behind would be a 'disposable' one and not a quality one. So is that actually any use to homeless people if it only lasts five minutes? I don't know, I'm just guessing.

The collecting and redistribution of tents at festivals came as a consequence of them being left, and wasn't initially encouraged. I saw a program about this where they had only a very short time to collect what they could before the rest was being cleared and dumped. You're correct Chestnut, they leave all sorts of equipment and some of the tents are so cheap they aren't capable of lasting for more than the duration of the festival. If the festival goers are wanting their tents to go to the homeless a better idea would be for them to physically take them to a dropoff point.

Just had a look at the Shein website and can't see anything for £1.49 as stated in the article, unless it's a cheap scarf or something.

Microsoft, Apple and other companies are not exactly squeaky clean in terms of exploitation. (Or they weren't, at least)

Of course, we then need to look at animal welfare when singing the praises of Ugg.

The production of clothing produces twice as much carbon as shipping and aviation put together.

Interesting. Please can you link to a source of this information?

And presumably that applies to the clothing produced anywhere, so fast fashion is contributing carbon from the production process and then again from the transport around the world.

I'm not sure exactly what fast fashion is (not being facetious)

Does it imply things that are bought and discarded when the next fad appears?

Chestnut

Just had a look at the Shein website and can't see anything for £1.49 as stated in the article, unless it's a cheap scarf or something.

I found quite a few tops at £1.49. I haven’t checked any other categories.

Shein sell absolutely everything for the home, the garden, and so on.

I have never even heard of them..

Probably just as well.

They are ridiculously cheap, and I've just been reading up on some sinister stuff that cheap fashion companies do in order to foster almost addictions to their items.

I havnt heard of of Schein either but do have tee shirts costing a few pounds from primark etc which I have had fir years, 100% cotton, no sign of wear.
I assume fast fashion implies worn once then thrown out MissA. Terrible waste.

The tops in those pictures are fast fashion, much favoured by youngsters who want something different to wear every time they go out. They would be binned pretty quick so hence the label 'fast fashion'. This has been going on for years but maybe even more so now.

Perhaps if clothing wasn’t so cheap we wouldn’t have this problem
Every year, some 59,000 tons of used and unsold clothing end up in Chile from all over the world. In the Atacama Desert, entire landscapes are now covered by new and old garments.

Chestnut

The tops in those pictures are fast fashion, much favoured by youngsters who want something different to wear every time they go out. They would be binned pretty quick so hence the label 'fast fashion'. This has been going on for years but maybe even more so now.

Yes, they are. That’s what the article is about.

Somebody mentioned those public information ads a while back.

Perhaps they should be reintroduced, showing the damage done?

Blossoming
The lovely Simon Reeve.

Juliet
That’s where my quote came from.

Thank you. I don’t know Simon Reeve so I’ll look him up.

There’s a documentary on Channel 4 tonight, sorry I don’t know the time so Google it if you’re interested.

Ch4 Inside the Shein Machine. :UNTOLD