How a fast-fashion boycott could help save the world and stop clothes from clogging landfills
The fashion industry is a major contributor to climate change, transforming consumer behaviour is one way to combat it
New Year’s resolutions.Let’s be honest, these are just insincere attempts to assuage guilt over the excesses of the holiday season. By the Lunar New Year, they will have been forgotten and the consumption will begin again – after all, we all need a cute new red outfit, don’t we?
Well, I’m considering a detox of a different sort: giving up fast fashion. I love the thrill of a cheap, fabulous find, however, excess has been weighing on my mind, especially after the October release of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. It found that the unprecedented rate and scale of climate change could have more catastrophic effects on our world than previously predicted. Think: biblical.
Fashion is undeniably a contributor. The industry uses about 98 million tonnes of non-renewable resources per year, not to mention the toxic chemicals released into the environment during manufacturing. And we’re not even wearing those clothes for long. In Hong Kong, about 340 tonnes of textile waste is dumped in our landfills daily.
