LESS IS MORE

"To make one pair of jeans, you will need about 7,500 liters of water, which is equivalent to the amount of water that a person drinks over 7 years."

As industries that have a harmful impact on the environment, the first industries that come to our mind are manufacturing, energy, transportation, and even food production, but the fashion industry meets the needs of 5 million people of 93 billion cubic meters every year. It uses enough water to dump about 500,000 tons of microfiber into the ocean. Even if you look at carbon emissions, the fashion industry emits more than the international aviation and shipping industries add up.

According to a report by McKinsey & Company, greenhouse gas emissions in the textile and apparel industry account for 6% of the world's total. The World Bank also points out that 20% of all pollution of industrial water is caused by textile factory wastewater. Due to this situation, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has ranked oil as the first in environmentally polluting industries and textiles and apparel as the second.

"Clothes are destroying the environment"

It may be difficult to imagine that the gorgeous clothes lined up in the shop are emitting CO2, destroying forests, and polluting rivers and the sea, but the burden that the fashion industry puts on the environment is surprisingly great. It is.

CO2 emissions in the fashion industry have been increasing, increasing by more than 60% compared to 2015, and are expected to reach about 2.08 billion tons by 2030, which is almost equal to the amount of CO2 emitted by 230 million passenger cars per year. In addition, a lot of chemicals are used, and cotton, which accounts for about 30% of clothing materials, accounts for 3% of the world's farmland, but 16% of all pesticides and 7% of all herbicides are used on this small land. Many farmers suffer from health hazards such as nausea and cancer due to the influence of these pesticides, and chemicals such as heavy metals and environmental hormones during dyeing pollute rivers and the sea, deprivening local people of drinking water.

The amount of water required to make a T-shirt is said to be 2720 liters, and if the average daily drinking water is about 1.5 liters per person, about 5 years of water is used.

It takes 10,000 to 20,000 liters of water to make 1 kilogram of cotton, and especially dyeing uses a lot of water. 85% of the water used in the entire production process is used for dyeing, and it is said that 100 to 150 liters of water are needed to dye 1 kilogram of fiber.

In addition, it is related to the problem of microplastics, and it is estimated that up to 13 million tons of microplastics are floating in the sea. It has been revealed that this adsorbs harmful chemicals such as PCB and concentrates it by 1 million times. Currently, about 60% of clothes are made of chemical fibers such as polyester and nylon, but every time they are washed, they become fine fibers and flow into sewage, and the fibers flowing out of rivers and seas enter the body of fish and enter our bodies. It is.

And the problem of garbage. 92 million tons of textiles are scrapped from the fashion industry every year, and an additional 57 million tons are expected to increase in 2030. This is equivalent to producing 175 kilograms of textile waste per year per person. The 3R (reuse, recycling, and repair) rate of clothing in Japan is about 26%, which is quite low compared to the recycling rate of plastic bottles and aluminum cans (about 80%), and more than 70% of the remaining are incinerated or landfilled. Japan relies on imports from overseas for about 95% of its clothing, transporting a large amount of clothing with energy and throwing away most of it as garbage. In Japan alone, there are 1 billion clothes that are discarded as new. Inexpense clothes manufactured by mass production can lead not only to the environment, but also to serious health damage caused by chemicals to people at the production site and tourch working conditions. There are many deep-rooted problems behind the production process of these clothes.

"LESS IS MORE"

Although some retailers are campaigning to mitigate the industry's harmful impact on the environment, the only way to make fashion truly sustainable is to put an end to a disposable culture. According to a 2019 report by McKinsey, the average person buys 60% more clothing than it was 15 years ago, while the time to keep what they bought is halved. It is said that even if the period of use of the same clothing is doubled, greenhouse gas emissions in the fashion industry may be halved.

In addition, not only the maker but also the buyer's awareness affects the way the maker is. Not only does it look good or bad, but also whether it is environmentally friendly, whether it is made in an unfair working environment, and whether it is properly made and can be worn for a long time, and whether it is really necessary for you in the first place... You should be more careful when buying clothes. Isn't it important to act after thinking about the production background of things until after completing the role, rather than making or buying easily just because it can be sold or if it's cheap?

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