In today’s day and age there are thousands of clothing brands in the United States alone. Each of these clothing brands are designing and making new styles of clothes every season. And in most cases these brands will make too many clothes: not all of their products will be purchased.

 Americans are fortune to have access to clothes that come in different styles and sizes. While in most developing countries people only have one outfit for the week. Americans are fortunate for the amount of clothes we have but we often take for granted having accesses to a closet full of clothes. But what do we do with these clothes when they don't fit, or we simply don't want to wear them anymore? In most cases people will throw those clothes away and they will get sent to landfills all across the world. What a waste!

What is fashion waste?

When these clothes get thrown out and sit at landfills to decompose overtime, it’s called fashion waste.  We have all heard of pollution that comes from cars, factories, and even cows. But the pollution that comes from the fashion industry is often overlooked. Many people love clothes and fashion. One main reason is because of the fashion trends that take over social media. People from the age 18-30 are the main consumers of online clothing stores or fast fashion sites. Fast fashion is one of the top contributors to fashion waste. Fast fashion is a huge industry where companies will mass produce clothing items for very cheap. This makes the clothes very accessible to almost all of the consumers. These companies mass producing these clothes becomes a problem because of the amount they make.

Fashion waste isn’t just caused by you throwing away clothes. Although that is a cause, there are many other contributing factors that are part of fashion waste. A website called Fashinza does a great job explaining these factors in their article “Everything you need to know about waste in the fashion industry” There are things like manufacturing waste, packaging waste, and toxic waste. These three things are all caused by the people who make the clothes. These factories contribute to polluting the air from the machines they use to manufacture the clothes. They can pollute the water that surrounds the plant. They can even put the people who work at these plants in danger because the materials they work with can be toxic.

What is waste?

What is waste? Waste is having too much of something, where it is not needed. I’m not saying we don’t need clothes, because we do. We don’t want to see everyone running around naked here. But we make too much. How many of you think you have ten articles of clothing? How many say 25? 50? Well, I would say if we all were to count every single piece of clothing in our personal possession, we would have upwards of 100 pieces each. In my personal experience I know that’s true for myself. And I also know I may only wear the same 3 hoodies and 3 pants every week. I also know there are plenty of clothes that sit in my room that never get worn. But holding onto these clothes and not wearing them is better than putting them in the trash.

Having those extra clothes in my room is a waste. But it’s even more wasteful to throw those clothes away when there are so many options for what to do with them instead.

Why should you care?

This is a great question. Well, to those of you that are in college let’s talk! College students are some of the most impressionable people. When new trends are set, we want to be the first people to be part of it. people will see the latest celebrity or influencer trend and we want to be just like them. In this generation, social media has taken over the world. Apps like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and so many more are all available in the palm of your hands. Social media influencers have impacted fashion trends in a huge way.

 Designers and other higher ups of fashion companies want to focus on these influencers to promote their clothing. Once they do that, more people will want to wear those clothes. For example, in 2022 there was a certain influencer who made a video of her wearing a certain type of shoe. After that every store around the Chicago land area sold out of this shoe within a week.

 These trends shift so often that in some cases people will change wardrobes almost every other month just to keep up with the fashion trends. Now what happens to these clothes that people say are out of style?

What is fast fashion?

 Another reason why you should care would be fast fashion. Fast fashion is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get new clothes and keep up with the trends. In most cases, you can buy a whole new wardrobe without leaving your bed.

I don’t want to name drop and talk down on some of these sites, but if you are buying a whole new wardrobe for under $100 something has got to be wrong. I’m not saying that the clothes you are buying are not actual clothes, or they will make your skin green. I mean there is something going on behind the scenes that is not good.

These fast fashion sites make so many clothes that it is one of the main causes to why there is so much pollution from fashion. With these cheap clothes there comes a lot of problems. They may shrink or get ruined in the wash. They may not fit the way you want so when you get them you don’t want them. They may only look good the first time you wear them. This being said the aftermath of what we do with these clothes after we get them is crazy.

Sustainability in fashion

 Sustainability in the fashion industry is defined as making or buying clothes in a responsible way where you recognize the effects to the environment. When you recognize what it does to the environment, you can help reduce waste and pollution by using more ecofriendly materials, producing fewer products, buying less, and never throwing away items. The big thing that comes up in discussions when talking about this is Retail. I got the chance to talk to two specialists in this industry and what they said is truly intriguing.

 Eric Johnson is a retail and wholesale senior level professional who has been working in the industry for over 25 years now. When I asked him about his thoughts on sustainability in the retail industry, he said that “sustainability is a fairly new term in the fashion industry, I feel like most retailers have been contributing more towards the problem than the solution.” He explained that these big retail companies buy so much product or produce so much product that it is doing more harm than helping the planet. He says that some materials are worse for the environment than others. He told me that denim is one of the worst products when it comes to pollution and fashion waste, and pointed out an article called Critical Review on Sustainability in Denim: A Step toward Sustainable Production and Consumption of Denim. This article shows you all the way the production of denim contributes to the amount of pollution in the fashion industry. Finally, we talked about what retail companies should do to be more sustainable and his big statement was: “Buy less.” The fewer products we have in circulation the fewer clothing items will end up in landfills. I think this is a key thing to understand for consumers as well. Because if we buy less and have less clothing items in our possession than it will reduce the chance that we will throw away items.

 Jason Contraveos has been in managerial and senior level positions in the retail industry for over 15 years now. And he has been buying and collection clothes and shoes for longer than that. He says he would rather save his clothing items over long periods of time rather than getting rid of them. He says he rents storage units where he stores his old clothes and shoes because he doesn’t want to throw them away. One positive to that he said is that a lot of those clothes are worth a lot more money now than they was when he bought them. In the fashion industry now, he says it’s better to save clothes and shoes and let them appreciate in value over time than to throw them away. This is good for two reasons: one being you will make money from buying these items, and the other being you are helping the planet because you’re keeping clothes out of landfills.