Fast Fashion Has Swept The Globe And The Garment Industry Has Become A Major Environmental Killer.

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Is there always less clothing in the wardrobe? Catching up with the trend of popularity and the relatively fast fashion (Fast Fashion) trend swept the world, H&M, Zara, Uniqlo and other brands become the most popular love of men and women. When they see it, they buy it, wear it out, lose it after the season, demand for consumption is satisfied, and brand turnover is also rising steadily.

However, behind such a consumption pattern, the earth's ecological crisis has become a serious problem which cannot be neglected.

Annual carbon emission accounts for 3% of total emissions.

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It has completely subverted consumers' choice of close fitting products and turned clothes into a "disposable" product.

According to the statistics of environmental protection non-governmental organization Green Peace (Greenpeace), between 2000 and 2014, the global garment production increased by 2 times, breaking through 100 billion.

In 2016, McKinsey's management consulting firm and Euromonitor, a research firm in 2014, also pointed out that total global apparel revenue in 2015 was US $1 trillion and 800 billion (about NT $30 trillion), an increase of 8 over 2002. In 2025, we will see 2 trillion and 100 billion dollars (about NT $64 trillion). The biggest force behind this is the rise of fast fashion brands.

In recent years, scientists have discovered that the garment industry has become a major environmental killer.

The 2017 Copenhagen fashion summit report pointed out that in 2015, the fashion industry consumed nearly 80 billion cubic meters of water, equivalent to 38.46 times the total effective capacity of 94 reservoirs in Taiwan (including Islands), and at the same time produced nearly 1 million tons of carbon dioxide and 92 million tons of waste.

If it covers production, pportation, consumption, washing, drying and dry cleaning, the annual carbon emission of the fashion industry is about 8.5 megaton of carbon dioxide, accounting for 3% of the world's total emissions.

1 pieces of cotton T use 2720 liters of water.

For example, produce 1 cotton t-shirts from planting.

The total amount of water needed for dyeing and finishing is 2720 litres of water, assuming that 2.5 liters of water is needed per person per day. This amount of water can be consumed for 3 years.

The amount of water needed to produce jeans is even more amazing. 1 jeans need to use 8506 liters of water to make 1 people shower 122 times.

One of the culprits of plastic pollution

The dyeing and finishing process of clothing can also cause extremely high pollution.

The World Bank estimates that nearly 1/5 of the world's industrial wastewater pollution comes from the textile dyeing and finishing industry. There may be as many as 72 toxic chemicals in the waste water, 30 of which can not be removed, and about 40% of the colorants contain carcinogens.

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In order to reduce production costs, the industry relies heavily on polyester fiber (Polyester).

Scientists are strongly appealed to the public to face up to the serious damage to the ecosystem by micro plastic (less than 5 millimeter of plastic particles), but in addition to the usual plastic bottles such as bottles and straws, clothing is actually a major source of plastic pollution.

The world's largest IUCN survey shows that 35% of the micro plastic pollution comes from synthetic fibers.

In Europe and Central Asia alone, the micro plastic fibers released from washing clothes are equivalent to 54 plastic bags per person discarded to the ocean every week.

While washing clothes, a large number of microplastics will enter the sewers along with sewage. Some of them will accumulate on the beach, some will flow into the sea and become food for plankton, fish and marine mammals. With the food chain moving upward, they will finally appear on people's table.

Most people do not know that washing their clothes at the same time, has caused environmental pollution, and may also indirectly eat plastic garbage.