Is Fashion Week Bad For The Environment?

Sofi Savarese
Mr. Roddy 
IHSS
3/26/20
Is Fashion Week Bad For The Environment?  
Recently during fashion week, a new trend is beginning to start, promoting sustainability. Fashion week is a time where designers can show their collection that they will be selling in the upcoming season, so that fashion editors, buyers, and magazines have an opportunity to preview the collection that they could be representing. Because this is such a big event, New York's Fashion Week was responsible for 37% of the 241,000 tons of carbon that is emitted annually. Even though the singular events are very problematic, they are not the problem, the entire industry is. In the past, there have only been two main fashion weeks, but due to higher demand, fashion weeks have been occurring more often. Because of this, the clothing is being made globally at a more rapid pace. Since 2000 the production rate has doubled with 150 Billion clothing items being produced a year. This amount of product is very bad for the rising amount of CO₂ in the air. "According to the United Nations, the clothing industry is responsible for some 10 percent of the world's carbon emissions". 
Some designers are starting to recognize the issues that Fashion week is causing, and are incorporating items into their pieces such as Fishing nets and reusable water bottles. Although this is causing awareness, it is not helping the industry's greater problem. Because of the increase in production, there is also a higher increase in the waste rates. The amount of times a piece of clothing has been worn before it is thrown away has dropped down 1/3 compared to before fashion shows were happening more than twice a year. This is causing most of the waste to end up in greenhouse gas-producing landfills. Currently, worldwide, a garbage truck full of clothes is burned and dumped in a landfill every second. While designers are promoting recycling and sustainability, it is not helping to solve the greater issue. The only real way to control the amount of CO₂ in the air due to the fashion industry is to bring down the production rate of clothing which will be hard due to the current demand in the fashion industry. 
Source
https://earther.gizmodo.com/new-york-fashion-week-isnt-sustainable-but-neither-is-1841700190 

Comments

  1. Kilali LatterMarch 27, 2020 at 8:22 AM

    This is very interesting. I didn't know that the fashion industry contributed that much to carbon emissions and produced a lot of waste. Did the article mention any solutions to the waste problem or do you have any solutions in mind? Is the fashion industry able to use more sustainable methods to produce clothes and still keep up with the demand?

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