Clothes
What is the problem?
The amount of clothes we buy and throw away.
Manufacturing process
Companies want fast turn around and lots of product, making factories abuse their workers
Fashion production accounts for between 4 and 10% of carbon output, more than shipping and international flights combined.
It also accounts for 1/5 of all the plastic produced each year
Supply outpaces demand causing companies to have over stock that get thrown out
Around 80% of people in garment manufacturing are women
There are significant ethical issues where they work, lack of opportunity to grow, under pay, and gender inequity in higher up positions. Also unsafe conditions.
3250 l water needed to produce cotton for 1 shirt
20% of water pollution from textile dying
This causes major health problems in many places, India and Bangladesh. In china, nearly 1/3 of rivers are considered to toxic for human contact
Over 9 trillion l of water used each year in creating and dying textiles.
Growing cotton uses 16% of the worlds pesticides, and they are harsher pesticides.
Natural fabrics generally not much better than synthetic because of large amount of chemicals they are treated with and water use and pesticides used with growth.
Natural fibres have the potential to be better though
Synthetic clothing manufacturing uses extremely high amounts of energy
Using process
Natural fabrics aren’t much better because of the amount of treatment they receive, they still release a significant amount of chemicals
Clothes are estimated to contribute 35% of micro plastics in to the ocean, making them the largest single contributor to ocean micro plastic pollution
These micro plastics end up all over the place, causing potential health problems to people, land and animals
We only on average where cloths 7 times, and only where 10 percent of them on a daily bases, and we buy 60% more clothes then we did in 2000
We throw 60% of our clothes away in the first year
First wash releases significantly more micro plastics then following washes
Recent research in ON showed that 2/3rds of textiles thrown out could have been fixed with only minor repairs
Garbage process
87% of clothes do not get recycled
US throws away around 2150 peaces of clothing every second.
Many clothes even those donated end up in land fills or incinerated
Clothes with mixed fibre fabrics are not recyclable
Many clothes that are made out of recycled materials end up in landfills after being thrown away, so using recycled materials helps but not as much as it should.
Why/how is it a problem?
Hurts people and environment
Wasteful
Continues inequity throughout the world
Outsourcing labour modern day slavery
What are the relevant stats?
Fashion industry would be 7th largest GDP in the world
Fashion industry over 2 trillion dollars
Source: Euromonitor International, a market research provider & McKinsey report ‘State of Fashion 2022: An uneven recovery and new frontiers’. Source: McKinsey analysis 2019
Data from roughly 2020
China and us biggest markets, then UK Germany and Japan.
Women’s fashion market greater than men and children combined
China and EU largest textile exporters in world, EU and US largest importers
LVMH and nike most profitable
Source: Statista, Clothing companies with the greatest market capitalization worldwide as of March 2022, March 2022
Global fashion industry produces over 100 to 150 billion items a year
More than doubled since 2000
Source: McKinsey, article ‘Style that’s sustainable: A new fast-fashion formula, October 2016.
Approximately 121 billion clothing and footwear products purchased in 2016
China top purchaser of items but US nearly double per capita
Source: Common Objective CO Data in the article ‘Volume and Consumption: How Much Does The World Buy?’, May 2018. Based on data: ‘Number of apparel units purchased
Consumption has more then quadrupled over the last 2 decades roughly
Source: website True Cost, a documentary film exploring the impact of fashion on people and the planet that was released in 2015.
Most people only where 50% of their wardrobe
Different sources name various numbers when estimating the amount of people that work in the garment industry. According to the International Labour Organization, there are more than 60 million workers around the globe in the textiles, clothing, leather and footwear industries. This implies that this number is limited to people that work in textile and apparel production.The Ellen MacArthur Foundation states that globally, the clothing industry employs more than 300 million people along the value chain, which can be understood to also include people that work in design, distribution and retail divisions of the fashion industry.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation & International Labour Organization, 2019
Human rights violations and the risk for slavery has gotten worse over the last 5 years
What is the history of this problem
For a long time, slavery cotton
Fast fashion more recent, Zarah example
Blowing up faster with places such as shine
Places like Zarah only exist because they copy the designs of luxury brands
Fashion industry is full of slavery
(when did this become known to researchers and officials?)
Over long periods of time, but more recently has been picking up more
How is this problem impacting and intersecting with the local economy, public health, etc.?
We all need clothes
Poorer people can not afford expensive and higher quality and more ethical clothing
Rich countries rely on poorer countries with cheap manufacturing to keep up clothing market
Rich people buy the vast majority of fashion
All these processes of manufacturing, and disposal and micro plastics etc have significant environmental impacts, to humans and animals as well.
Companies are encouraging us to buy more sustainable fashion products, instead of taking care of what we already have. The goal is to get consumers to keep buying because it keeps making money.
Clothes are a status symbol. They work to differentiate the wealthy from the less wealthy.
This combined with social media means we are constantly being encouraged to buy more. Clothing companies capitalize on this, advertising to consumers to always buy more, but this is a problem of society as a whole.
Spending more also means people will have more debt etc.
Fashion industry is supported by our culture, and it helps maintain inequality across the world.
Possible solutions
Local place recycling clothing and teaching people how to repair their stuff
Stores should just have less, better quality clothes available and should encourage consumers to repair what they have and keep it for longer.
Fix what you have
Micro plastic filters in laundry https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/reduce-laundry-microfiber-pollution/
There are various projects trying to recycle clothes around the world, and others looking into making manufacturing more sustainable and ethical.
Donating clothes better then throwing them out, but does not fix the greater problem, and many donated clothes don’t sell.
Interview with Jonathan Crane from St Augustine’s Anglican Church, nov 17 2023
(A) if they were already aware of this issue (if so, how/when did they find out?),
already fairly aware, but not fully, learned some stuff, like about recycling not helpful.
Bangladesh factory collapse made him feel closer to the issue.
looks at clothing tags to see where made and if good
he was part of an event a while ago about over sees ministry, and person who lead it was aware of these issues and told them about it. that was first time.
he took initiative
(B) what, if anything, do they think the church’s responsibility is towards that issue,
should definitely have response.
international issue to some extent, unsure of of how to have international response. but bigger issue is consumers. we pay money for fast fashion, wealthier people.
church should teach consumers, responsible to share with consumers about how being christian means loving our neighbour is loving the person who makes our clothes.
response build awareness. connecting the issues to faith. talks look at church use, what can we do better.
is it just ethics or is it environmental as well?
(C) why they answered the way they did in B
environment and humans are tied together. influence each other etc.
being better consumers will impact global story. environmental story more locally. ie buying local, much better for carbon use. local action has more environmental impact
have to advocate for using things for there full life cycle.
churches can teach that, but also can have events to help people fix stuff.
you cant take care of your neighbour without taking care of land
if were acting kindly to each other, we will take care of environment.
(D)—what is it about what they think the Christian responsibility towards the environment in general is that is informing their response to this issue in particular?
caring for the earth is primary relationship of care. because we come from it. from primary relationship with earth, comes common relationship with humans and animals etc. we are from the same place though.
very linked.
” what we do to the web of life we do to our selves”.
Jesus says that everything is connected, spirit part of it all from storms being calmed, to sun going dark on crucifixion etc.
(E) if their church is already are doing something about that issue what are they doing and who are they partnered with,
preached about boating with your money. had some people talk about how we can be more environmental with our goods. and they did a fundraiser to so reusable sandwich bags and sold them. advocated with this to reduce single use plastics
in greater dioceses, don’t use single use plastics at churches, as much as possible. try to compost, use real utensils etc.
F: what more do you think could be done by your specific church?
become more specific. do documentary series on these issues to educate congregation. have evening events to talk about this and look at it.
connect with other groups that are doing this kind of stuff.
Would you like to add anything else?
we need to grasp more, and that Christianity has something to say about, sacredness of whole creation.
intrinsic value of goods of earth and sacredness of it, and people.
view caring for what we have as a sacred work.
learn from other traditions
spiritual and practical are intimately connected and we are losing that connection.
we need to extend our sense of the sacred.
Respond
Activism? How can church be more involved in changing things, besides just consumers
Also theres more theology then u mentioned