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Real Cost of Fashion
Real Cost of Fashion
A 13-year-old in a textile factory in Bangladesh; the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory (right) in Bangladesh in 2013 killed more than 1,100 people.
oung women hunch over sew- work long hours in dangerous conditions costs translate to lower prices for shop-
Y
ing machines in a windowless to make them, in the kinds of factories pers (who then buy more clothing) and
workroom in Bangladesh. often labeled sweatshops. Most garment higher profits for retailers. That's helped
Elbow to elbow in the stifling workers are paid barely enough to survive. make fashion a $3 trillion global industry.
heat, they assemble jackets. Fast fashion also hurts the environ- Today, many of the world's 75 mil-
Together, the women must sew hundreds ment. Garments are manufactured using lion garment workers live in China and
of jackets an hour, more than 1,000 a day. toxic chemicals and then transported Bangladesh, the top-two clothing produc-
Their daily wage is less than $3. around the globe, making the fashion ers. Workers often earri just a few dollars
Just a week or two later, these same industry the world's second-largest pol- a day. Many are women in their teens.
jackets will be labeled fall's hottest back- luter, after the oil industry. And millions "They're sometimes the first one in
to-school item, selling to teens for $14.99 of tons of discarded clothing piles up in their families to have a real job, so the
each at malls across the United States. landfills each year. family is eager to get them into the fac-
The jackets are just one example of "A lot of what we're throwing away tories as quickly as they can," says
what is known as fast fashion: trendy hasn't even been worn that many times," Michael Posner of New York University's
clothes designed, created, and sold to says Elizabeth Cline, author of Stern Center for Business and
consumers as quickly as possible at Overdressed: The Shockingly Human Rights. "It's a very
A Deadly Accident
Many people didn't give much thought
to how their clothing was made until
April 24, 2013, when the Rana Plaza fac-
tory building in Bangladesh collapsed ..
The deadliest accident in the history of
the garment industry, it killed more than
1,100 workers and injured 2,500 others.
The factory, overloaded with too many
floors, workers, and equipment, had
been making clothing for global brands
such as Benetton, Joe Fresh, and Mango.
After the accident, many big brands In southern China, too, many facto-
pledged to improve garment factory con- their production capacity to affo
ries now offer safer conditions and better higher employee pay and buildii
ditions. About 200 major clothing com- wages than they did a decade ago. In some
panies partnered to create factory over- repairs. That means the factories a
areas, the minimum wage for garment less able to fill massive orders from b
sight programs in Bangladesh. In recent workers reached $312 a month last year-
years, these programs have trained about brands. As a result, big clothing comp
42 percent more than the previous year. nies may eventually shift their busine
2 million workers in safety procedures. Better working conditions and wages
The companies have also hired indepen- to even poorer countries with few:
come at a price, however. Some facto- regulations, experts say.
dent engineers to inspect their factories. ries in Bangladesh have had to reduce Other factories can't afford to mal
SOURCE:
DEPARTMENT OF
COMMERCE, OFFICE OF
TEXTILES AND APPAREL;
PERCENTAGES ROUNDED
the major structural upgrades that are U.S. sends about 70 percent of the cotton materials from U.S. factories,where they
needed for them to be safe. (Of the 2,000 it grows overseas, where it's turned into can better monitor working conditions.
Bangladeshi factories that have been clothing.) Some of those pesticides can Big brands are trying to be more eco-
inspected so far, only 79 had passed final cause asthma and other health problems, conscious, a~ well. H&M, for example,
inspection as of March 2017.) and the chemicalspollute fresh water. offers customers store credit to recycle
That's one reason unsafe working The damage doesn't end once cloth- clothes at its retail locations.
conditions persist. Last year, a garment ing is made. Americans on average "I think we're going to see big fash-
factory fire in India killed 13 people. trash more than 70 pounds ion brands become leadersin
Another fire this past June injured more of clothes and shoes a year. Many big sustainableclothes and make
than 20 knitwear factory workers in Most are burned or piled in brands them accessible and more
Bangladesh. Some jumped out of third- landfills, where synthetic affordable," Clinepredicts.
pledged But experts agree it will
story windows to escape the flames. fibers can take hundreds of
years to break down. to improve take more than just efforts
Environmental Toll "A lot of the problems lactory by clothing companies to
Fastfashion also takes a heavy toll on the in the fashion industry are conditions. remedy the problems of fast
environment. The industry consumes things that are happening fashion. Local factory own-
enormous amounts of water and other in other places: air and water pollu- ers, global retailers, and consumers
natural resources. Producing enough tion in China, poverty and low wages in must all playa role.
cotton for one pair of jeans takes about Bangladesh," says Cline. "The waste is If teenage shoppers, to whom much of
1,800gallons of water-the equivalentof happening in our own backyard." fast fashion is marketed, educate them-
about 105 showers. As more people have become aware selves about how their clothes are made
Manufacturing polyester, which is of the ugly side of fast fashion, the and think carefullyabout what they buy,
made from petroleum, releases danger- push for ethically made clothing has it can make areal difference,experts say.
ous gases into the air. And farming cot- grown. In the U.S., hundreds of start- "It's everybody's problem," says
ton accounts for a quarter of all pesti- ups are creating clothes out of recycled Posner, "and it's everybody's responsi-
cides used in the United States. (The or organic fabrics. These companies use bility to come together and solve it."
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