It's no secret that if an item of clothing is amazingly cheap, a corner must have been cut along the way. Stacey Dooley investigates this corner cutting in her latest documentary "Fashion's Dirty Secret". It was revealed in the documentary that Kazakstan's Aral Sea has been reduced to a dustbowl. What once was a an in-land sea filled with fish, providing vital food and employment to the surrounding community, is now non-existient.
The reason for this you ask. The cotton plantations just south of the sea have used and continue to use the water that would've been fed directly to the sea. Resulting in a wasteland filled with toxic chemicals. The documentary highlights that cheap clothes do in fact come at a high price point; for people and for the planet.
It was also revealed that 300,000 tonnes of clothes are dumped into landfills every year. Clothes which use up a large percentage of water end up wasting away when they could be recycled to make new products or reused for another purpose.
The shocking statistics and facts relating to the fashion industry was enough to make me really question my own spending habits. I'm a lover of many high-street stores from Primark, to River Island. However, after seeing this documentary it has made me question where I buy my clothes and the impact it has.
I often see in shops "sustainable cotton" and "ethically manufactured" but what do these phrases really mean. Its on par with the "free-range" trend in the food industry. We, as consumers, really have no idea where our clothes come from or the price we have to pay for them. WE drive the prices down as we want more fast fashion for cheaper prices. Yet, do we consider the consequences of this type of fashion.
Rather than investing in ethical and sustainably produced garments, we choose to engage in a "spend because we can" ideal where we shop for the sake of it not because we needanything. These clothes then end up in landfills when the trend has died down or we no longer want that item.
The solution? As consumers we help to shape the market by our spending habits. If we all engaged in a little less fast fashion and supported more brands which are trying to make a difference, the other brands would have no choice but to follow. In terms of the landfill sites I believe there should be a mainstream way to recycle clothing. Items which are still in good condition go to people who need them and those garments which are no longer fit for purpose can be recycled into something new.
I'm glad that issues like this are being touched on. Climate change and global warming have been hot topics in the news recently, and this documentary has showed us that one of the biggest industries in the UK could also be to blame.
REFERENCES
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2018/10/08/fashions-dirty-secret-stacey-dooley-investigates-review-no-frills/
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