More than 75% of the world's clothing exports and 50% of the world's textile exports are produced in developing countries. The environmental impact of clothing production is often far away from people like us, creating a rift between responsible consumption and waste disposal.

We often turn a blind eye to more than 92 million tons of solid waste dumped into landfills every year. With the amount of fabric thrown away, or the millions of garments sent to landfills to be burned, we lose a valuable resource: 1.2 billion tons of CO2 emissions produced annually on the wires. fashion production line; contaminated water lines; factories where manual workers, including exploited children, have to spend hours working in deplorable conditions for extremely low wages.

More and more people have the habit of shopping for clothes online. Photo: lecine.

The evolution of online shopping

No one ever thought that the brands that were popular on the main streets were capable of incurring losses, but thanks to the growth of the Internet, more and more clothing stores are closing and more and more people are shopping just for free. with a finger on the virtual store.

The shift from physical shopping to online shopping could open the door for brands that are doing the right thing and value sustainability, but unfortunately that hasn't happened.

Instead, technology has opened the way for retailers to copy the new tight-fitting dress worn by a certain celebrity yesterday and sell it to the public online.

It's time for both the industry and the consumers themselves to realize that change is needed.

The Turag River in Dhaka (Bangladesh) is polluted by dye factories. Photo: Reach

The most used fabrics in fashion

Polyester is the most common fiber in our clothes and it is essentially plastic. Polyester is an acronym for a synthetic man-made polymer, commonly known as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and is made by mixing ethylene glycol with 9 terephthalic acid (which is essentially a crude oil).

According to research by Forbes magazine, every year 70 million barrels of oil are used to produce polyester fibers. And this material takes more than 200 years to decompose.

Cotton: 90% of cotton fabrics today are made from genetically modified (GMO) cotton and this crop consumes the largest amount of pesticides in the world, which means a lot of water.

The effects of these chemicals (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and others) on soil and human health have not been tested, but they are very dangerous for people working in the field. industrial cotton.

Chemicals from GM cotton seep directly into the bloodstream through the skin, putting cotton workers at risk of chemical exposure, as well as anyone using manufactured garments. from this cotton.

To avoid that, try to find and buy organic cotton products wherever you can.

Leather has been around since 3,000 BC, it's not really a by-product of food production and isn't expensive either.

According to designers like Stella McCartney, leather is associated with many environmental and human health threats.

The amount of food, soil, water and fossil fuels used to feed animals for their skins comes at a huge cost to our planet.

Besides feeding the necessary animals, the tanning process is among the most toxic in the entire fashion supply chain. Workers are exposed to toxic chemicals and waste that can contaminate natural water sources, increasing diseases like cancer.

Wool is a traditional fiber but has a very small market share, about 1% and is decreasing in the world of textiles. About 2 billion kg of raw wool is produced from the wool of 1.2 billion sheep, each providing about 4.5 kg of wool per year.

That's the equivalent of one thick sweater for every person on the planet every year.

As the demand for wool decreased and the demand for synthetic fibers increased, in the 1970s people began to look for a technology to turn wool into a yarn that was easy to wash and dry. This leads to the production of wool being treated through acid baths and other toxic processes. [...]

Some environmentalists have pointed out that sheep raised for wool also contribute to climate change because they threaten land, air and water resources.

Silk: For hundreds of years, silk has been important to many fashion products and is often considered a luxury. This delicate fabric has since ancient times been made from natural protein fibers that are silkworms and then woven into fabrics.

This is a material that is highly renewable and biodegradable at the end of its life.

But when silk became common, modern silkworms are fed mulberry leaves sprayed with pesticides and fertilizers to grow.

Daisy Kendrick/Tan Viet Books và NXB Dan Tri

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