Importance of Sustainable Clothing Nowadays and it Effects in Future Generation

Fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters. Most of these clothes are made from plastic which can pollute body of waters.

Nowadays, finding eco-friendly clothing brands no longer involves sacrificing style for sustainability but rather through low waste lifestyle. It focuses on using organic materials such as bamboo, cotton and hemp.

What is Sustainable Clothing?

The textile industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters, billions of pounds of textile waste go to landfills every year. These throw away fabrics are buried with other waste in landfill like metal components, on which the moisture and heat reacted emitting methane greenhouse gas. And it takes about 3,000 liters of water to produce a single T-Shirt.

In traditional clothing manufacturing, more chemicals are used and massive amount of water is being wasted. The plastic microfibers from washed clothes contribute as well to ocean pollution. The good news is sustainability in fashion industry becomes more of priority.

Sustainability in fashion industry uses natural fibers that are ethnically sourced or organically grown without using pesticides or other harmful chemicals, or vegan products that are cruelty free and manufactured through eco-friendly practices. It explores ways to make fashion industry more sustainable and circular.

What is Fast Fashion Clothing?

Fast Fashion Clothing provides latest fashion trends to consumers, it focuses how fast fashion items are made, rather than how things are being made such as people or the environment behind its production.

It uses significant amounts of resources to produce fast while it also creates excessive waste. This Fast Fashion Clothing produces high fashion designs in mass production in low cost. It can give you new clothes every six months.

While the Sustainable Fashion is well thought about that requires both more work and money to. It’s made of high-quality material it guarantees you not to continue buying new clothes all the time.

For a brand to be sustainable they have to meet the criteria regarding the use of material, working conditions, and impact on the environment.

Goal of Sustainable Fashion Industry:

There are increasing number of fashion designers and brands looking for a change to rectify the damage and create better future for the planet. As Stella McCartney said “Sustainable doesn’t mean boring or “lacking in any sort of luxury or beauty, detailing or desirability”.

> Use of biodegradable materials, materials that are kinder to the environment

> Production of Eco-Friendly Clothes should have as little effect on the environment, free from harmful chemicals to eliminate pollution. And reduce the water usage in production process.

> Run the production with renewable source of energy.

> Recycling scrap fabric or other materials like plastic bottles into new garments

> Recycle and Reduce the fabrics that ends up on cutting room, some of the clothing industry make zero waste pattern cutting and used it to arrange pattern pieces on fabric

> Reused new products that avoid the need to harm natural organic resources

> Fair manufacturer’s labor practices such as decent wage, and safe and healthy working conditions

> Use recyclable packaging in shipping

> Transport clothing responsibly

> Consumers get instant fulfilment in supporting greater good of the planet

Sustainable industry work to improve products life cycle. As Patricia Espinosa of UN said: “To turn things around, we must make a choice: we can keep on with business as usual and hope to survive the consequences or take a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror and admit that we need a drastic and dramatic change.”

Better Materials for Sustainable Fashion:

When choosing materials, designers are being creative when designing and choosing materials to make sustainable clothing.

Below are some of the most sustainable fabrics in fashion industry

> Organic Cotton is a biodegradable natural fiber that help reduce the negative impact of cotton industry, the impact of soil, water and health quality.

> Bamboo can be used as sustainable fabric because of its fast-growing capability, however to make the bamboo fabrics soft, they are subjected for chemical processing which can harm the environment.

> Hemp is one of the most sustainable fabrics you can look for in garments. Hemp fabric is made of long fibrous strands. It’s a dense plant that doesn’t require pesticides to keep them healthy, and uses 50% less water than cotton.

> Tencel is a progressive fiber that being engineered today. Tencel comes from eucalyptus tree that doesn’t require pesticides, and huge land.

> Linen is a natural plant-based fiber that’s biodegradable, and one of the most eco-friendly textiles that used in making of clothing and bedding today.

> Flocus can be used as recyclable and biodegradable fabrics from the fibers of kapok tree through a process that doesn’t harm the environment. These Kapok trees can be grown in poor soil without need of pesticides or water.

Importance of Transparency and Consumers on Fashion Industry

The need of transparency is important for consumers so they can be able to identify greenwashing products. Greenwashing provides misleading information about how eco-friendly company’s products claimed.

The consumers have vital role to make fashion industry adopt more to sustainable practices. They are likely to remain loyal if they see the brands, they love making authentic and transparent effort to become more sustainable. However, they don’t want to be fully responsible for making that happen. Consumers want policymakers to take action. They will be more align if they are armed with more information and they felt they can trust the brands tell them.

But remember as consumer we can also reduce waste by how we care for our clothing and how we properly discard it.

Below are the Tips to be a Conscious Consumer:

As said by Schosswohl "By creating a direct relationship between the garment and the wearer, the lifecycle of a given item will increase exponentially."

> Buy only what you need. Try to buy fewer and more responsible clothing that you’ll be worn regularly rather than multiple cheaper items the one-off wears. Ask yourself if you want to wear it for next six months.

> Look for brands that are open about their environmental policies. To know if the clothing brand are for sustainable ethical fashion is to check their websites.

Try to read labels and understand them like chemical dyes and the effects it can have in your body and chemicals released into the environment once the fabrics start to break down.

> Choose natural fibers

> Shop for quality and longevity

> Take care of your clothing

> Upcycle unwanted clothes into something new. Using 3D printing to personalized your fashion help counter the wastefulness of mass production. You can use raw materials produced locally and made fit for your body.

> Repair any damage or buy secondhand or vintage. Shopping vintage significantly saves the environment as no production has been done for you to have a new clothe.

> When discarding pass clothing to someone who will wear it or to a thrift shop

> Rent clothing

> Use of digital garments that aims to make self-expression through digital clothing as sustainable way if you’re mainly concerned about your image on social media.

> Buy locally to supports local economy

> Educate yourself on sustainable fashion, and encourage brands to become more inclusive and accessible.

If you hope to be sustainable, ethical consumer make a more thoughtful purchase. Ask yourself if you truly need to buy and add it to your cart. As Schiros said “I think the best piece of clothing is the one that already exists. The best fabric is the fabric that already exists, keeping things as many loops and cycles as you can is really, really important.”

Even you don’t have much budget, it’s not difficult to consider new ways how to value clothes for more sustainable fashion lifestyle.

There’s no perfect sustainable clothing, what’s important is to recognize the need to lessen the impact of these into the environment.

What are Ethical Working Conditions in Fashion Industry?

Fashion industry have bad reputation when it comes to working conditions, some workers are not paid in minimum wage and sometimes abused and being exploited. That’s why sustainable fashion ends this reputation, they create fair working conditions and paid a fair living wage. They even collaborate with artisans and indigenous communities to protect biodiversity in the world and produce environmentally sustainable products.

Brands cannot be truly sustainable if they aren’t ethical and vice versa.

> Why sustainable fashion expensive?

The process of sustainable clothing production lives up to certain standards on how the production process and materials used impact the environment. This requires more work and money than regular fashion production.

Learn more about Sustainable Living:

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