Fast fashion is not sustainable in any meaningful sense, given that it generates annual greenhouse gas emissions from textile production alone that exceed international flights and maritime shipping combined, according to the UN Environment Programme. Then there’s the 20% of industrial water pollution that’s attributable to the dyeing and treatment of those same textiles. And that’s just at the start of the process.
At the other end of the fast fashion lifecycle is the sheer volume of waste that finds its way into landfill and the plastic microfibers that end up in the world’s oceans. In between, there...