By Tova Golland
The fashion industry contributes to around 10% of global carbon emissions, but 88% of consumers continue to purchase clothing from fast fashion brands. Why? Because consumers have a high demand for things that are simple and quick which is what makes fast-fashion so intriguing to them. These fast-fashion companies tend to produce items that look similar to “high end items” or what consumers would call a “duplicate” which gives consumers who might obtain a lower income, to wear clothing that looks like it’s expensive, but not have to put a dent in their income. The production of these fast-fashion items have negative externalities such as pollution and waste. When fast-fashion items are produced, it can generate marginal external costs of consumption. For instance, fast-fashion clothing is not biodegradable and cannot be recycled. Meaning that when the clothes are discarded, they end up in landfill sites and could stay there for up to 200 years. If the discarded clothes end up in the ocean, they can release microplastics into the water and therefore pollute it. The dyes that are used to produce fast-fashion clothing items are cheap and toxic textile dyes that can be very harmful to the workers as well as the consumers who wear them. The reason that these fast-fashion companies can produce clothing for cheap and sell it for cheap is because they often outsource production to countries with lower labor costs
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