Fashion industry
The Fashion industry has grown significantly since ancient times, contributing considerably to exerting massive impacts on the environment. Due to increase in population and technology, the market demand for clothes has raised, leading to the emergence of fast fashion to supplement the market needs. However, from the research, it was noted that quick design has enormous impacts on the environment which need to be looked at to enhance effective and sustainable fashion industry. All apparel and textile products can undergo recycling by individuals deciding to donate them to charity stores or putting them in waste collection bins located at the reprocessing centers. Some of the cloth products are reprocessed and reused for different purposes, such as rag rugs or patchwork (Ashfaq, Ahmad, & Amna, 780). Textile plastic bottles after recycling can be used to create Polar Tec Fleece commonly applied in outdoor clothing.
Reuse and recycling of wastes is primarily an option and a routine in people’s living conditions. Both processes are behaviors which, apart from bringing financial benefits to those who adopt them, they also protect the environment from continued pollution. Once individuals make recycling and reuse their way of life, they could initiate procedures to mobilize other people and even their governments to adopt reusing, recycling and repurposing their wastes and thus making the process a natural way of living. To counteract the impacts of the fast-growing fashion industry on the environment, all stakeholders need to come up with alternative strategies to handling their apparel waste materials.
Each stage in the cloth manufacturing life cycle has its impacts on the environment. Thus for effective reduction of textile and cloth wastes from the environment, all steps have to be evaluated separately, starting from production to consumption as shown in the diagram below.
Figure 1: source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/340514421806354872
From the above apparel and textile life cycle, it is clear that most of the impacts arise directly from the initial stage of the manufacturing process. It is clear that all the levels of the textile and apparel production processes starting from the extraction of the raw materials, assembling of the raw materials, packaging of the finished products, transportation, and distribution of the products to consumers, products usage and wastes disposal mechanisms exert considerable impacts on the environment. The environmental areas impacted by the apparel and textile processes include land use intensity, water, natural biodiversity, energy consumption, and also peoples’ health.
The textile and apparel production processes can be improved to suit the requirements of a sustainable fashion industry by modifying and monitoring all its operational stages. For instance, the production stage can be enhanced by using durable raw materials such as renewable sources of energy, recycled fiber products instead of extracting virgin fibers, the packaging stage can be improved by introducing products with few packaging requirements, the garment usage stage can be enhanced by educating consumers on how to sort and treat their garments while washing. The consumers need to be aware of how to dispose of the garments after they are worn out or outdated. Consumers can either donate their garments to a charitable organization or take them to second-hand cloth collection centers for repurposing and recycling.
All these improvements in the cloth life cycle will help to transform the fast fashion industry into more of a sustainable process which focuses on quality rather than quantity. Development of sustainable fashion through the improvement of the clothing life cycle will help advance the recycling, reusing, and repurposing of garments and thus maintain a pollution free environment.
Based on the mentioned solid wastes impacts on the environment from unsustainable fashion production processes, different product manufacturers such as H&M are transforming their daily operations to achieve new initiatives towards the sustainable fashion industry. Closing the loop in the clothing sector, manufactures and consumers ought to take active roles in installing a circular economy through their different programs. Several guiding principles are coming up in the fashion and textile industries applying to all stakeholders from producers, retailers to the consumers of the textile, and final fashion products. These principles are aimed at reducing the high levels of wastes emanating from the clothing and textile production life cycles through the modification of the creation, wrapping, and designing procedures. These principles include the following; strategize with a purpose, Plan for durability, strategize for biodegradability, initiate and create without harmfulness. Source and manufacture with good ethics, Strategize for resource efficiency, plan for recyclability, produce with effectiveness, Source and create more locally, find and create using renewables. Deliver services to long upkeep life, Collaborate well and widely, Consider used or reform instead of purchasing new, Utilize, clean and repair carefully, reprocess or reuse all trash and purchase value as compared to magnitude.
The adoption and implementation of the circular economy principles are hoped to transform the fashion and textile industries through mitigation of toxins emission and waste release (Hall & David, 3). If we can adopt the circular economy by closing the loop on how we sort and treat our clothing, we could realize the benefit we could be bringing towards a sustainable surrounding. In sustainable circular fashion approaches, the end product is completely recycled to convert it into original elements like fibers to help in recreating it again, as shown in the diagram below.
Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=circular+economy+in+the+fashion+industry&tbm
As consumers of clothing products, we can play a vital role in ensuring a sustainable surrounding through how we sort and treat our garments. For instance, we can always make sure we read the garment label of instructions before using them, be keen on the types of detergents we use to wash our garments and we should separate white nylon clothes from the other white cloths to evade contaminating the attires with colors from different fabrics. Separating our clothes during the washing process will help in ensuring the durability of our garments and thus reduce our frequency of buying new clothes and in doing so, minimize the number of cloth wastes on the environment. We should sort our clothes based on color shades and fabric type to avoid destroying finer attires and altering the cloth color. The choice of the detergent we use in washing our clothes should be based on the garment’s care label instructions to avoid discoloring or reducing the durability of the attire.
The cloth production can be improved through various ways such as; the clothing manufacturers can adopt the reclaim to wear initiative to reduce wastes on the environment. This initiative will lead to the manufacturing of fashion design made entirely from suitable fabrics discarded by previous fashion collection stores. It will also lead to the formation of a zero waste fashion collection, creating a unique fashion industry which focuses on environmental protection.
Individual awareness and attitude are crucial in understanding the proper ways of handling household wastes such as garments for better environmental conservation. If individuals are made are of the benefits associated with reuse and recycling of their household wastes, they could develop more desire for recycling and reuse of products and thus help in creating a more sustainable surrounding.
If countries implement the use of circular economy in the production sector, the could realize many potential benefits such as improved security in supply chain of industrial raw materials, increased industrial competitive advantage in the global market, minimized pressure on the environment, growth of technological innovations, more employment creation for its citizens, and boosted growth of the economy.