A while ago I watched this documentary on Netflix called "The True Cost" in which you learn about how the fashion industry works and the impacts it has on us as consumers and the rest of the world. I started thinking about this documentary as I moved all of my things from school back home, and also from watching some shows on HGTV. And all I could think about was the excessiveness of stuff that we own.
We live in a society of fast trends and a "give it to me now" philosophy where we want the newest thing as soon as possible. But that's not always a good thing, especially when it comes to fashion. A style will be in for maybe part of a season and then it'll be "last year's trend" before the season is even over.
Fast fashion means fast production and low costs. Hundreds, even thousands, of women are crammed into factories to produce the thousands of clothing items that are demanded each day, for a wage that would be despicable here in the US. Many workers die from accidents that occur in the factories or become injured protesting for their rights.
Once we have our cheap clothing and the trend is gone, what do a lot of people do with it? Many just throw them away, often ending up in dumps in developing countries, where people live. Clothing can take more than a lifetime to degrade, and so it just sits there releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere and seeping into the soil. This causes health problems like cancer, skin conditions, birth defects, and mental retardation to the people in the surrounding areas.
Surprisingly, if you think giving clothes to charity is helpful, you couldn't be more wrong. Only a small percentage of clothes actually goes to charity. The rest gets shipped off to developing countries where the people will use the clothes, or it gets dumped in the landfills, causing issues like those I just mentioned. Our clothing going there affects their economy by decreasing the jobs available, thus making the poorer countries even poorer.
Not only does what we buy affect other people across the world, but it also affects us, the consumers. It is shown that the more value we put into materialistic things, the more depressed and unhappy we are. It may sound like a cliche, but it's true that money cannot buy happiness. If you have a bunch of money and you spend it on materialistic things, chances are, you're not going to be very happy.
So what do we do? What can we do? Well as the consumer, the power is in our hands. Even though it's tempting to go to stores where you can get the latest fashions for cheap, don't. Try to avoid companies that are known to sell clothing or other items for cheap like H&M, Forever 21, even Walmart, just to name a few. Or even make it known to them that you demand a change in the way that they handle responsibility for the workers.
But first, watch the documentary. Decide for yourself if it is something to speak up about. I have relayed some of the important points of this film, but the stories that the workers share is something that everyone needs to hear. This is a global rights issue, health issue, and agricultural issue that needs to be discussed and fixed.
