12 Fast Fashion Facts

Fast fashion is inexpensive clothing that is mass produced by retails in response to the latest trends for example Shein, ASOS, H&M, Primark, Boohoo, and Pretty Little Thing are just some. Fast Fashion is a major problem and is creating so much waste. 
It takes so much water to make the clothes, then lots of fabric and goods get wasted and sent to landfill alongside what is sold cheap and then discarded quickly by consumers. 

12 Fast Fashion Facts

1. Over 100 Billion items are made each year which is nearly 14 items for every human being on the planet!
We do not need to consume fashion in this way, this is in addition to the millions of pieces of clothing that are already made that we could be using!

2. 60% of clothing is made with plastic based materials which massively contributes to the world wide plastic pollution crisis.
Polyester is plastic, how many of your items in your wardrobe are plastic? There is no 'away' so when we make these items they will be here for hundreds of years. Polyester can be recycled if this facility is available, which it isn't to cope with the number of items that need to be recycled so often ends up in landfills. 

3. The fashion industry uses around 93 billion cubic meters of water each year. To produce some jeans take up to 2,000 gallons. The other large concern about this is that most of the water left from this is then contaminated which runs into lots of places that are used by people to wash and drink. 


4.Textile waste is another large concern with around 92 million tonnes generated yearly. This is from dead stock fabrics, items that have gone out of fashion, or clothing that doesn't fit any longer - often lots new. 
How we can waste so much which could be used is just unbelievable - we need to find ways to use this. 

5.Low price tags often mean something is wrong behind the scenes. Child labor, low salaries, lack of safety rules, no workers rights and excessive working hours. If you would like to look at this further then please do go and watch Channel 4's program on Shein - it is very eye opening and worth a watch.

6. 59% of sustainability claims by fast fashion companies are green washing (where companies spend more time making sustainability plans rather than putting them into place). 
The schemes that buy back often just send to landfill but they get you in the shop and buying again! 

7.Since 2000, EU fashion brands went from releasing just two collections a year to up to 24. This creates that need for the latest fashion and to keep up with trends. 24! That seems a crazy amount when there are only 4 seasons in a year! This just perpetuates the need to buy.

8.In the UK, one third of young women think an item is 'old' after it has been worn once or twice. 1 in 7 say that being photographed in the same outfit twice is a 'fashion no-no'.
We need to start with young adults, teaching them about their impact. 

9.Over half a million tonnes of micro fibers are released into the ocean each year from washing clothes. As so many clothes have plastic in this creates massive pollution.
Plastic has been found in one of the deepest trenches in the ocean, its everywhere!

10. By 2050 fashion could be responsible for 26% of the worlds total carbon emission. Currently this is around 10%.

11. More than two tonnes of clothing is bought each minute in the UK - more than any other country in Europe.
Why do we buy so much stuff? And then spend time just trying to clean out our houses because we have so much stuff?!

12. The average consumer buys 60% more clothing than 15 years ago.

Facts taken from:
11 Fast Fashion Facts You Might Not Know | Earth.Org
New Shocking Facts about Fast Fashion | Oxfam GB
27 Revealing Fast Fashion Statistics for 2022 (fashiondiscounts.uk)