{"id":820,"date":"2021-12-18T12:57:58","date_gmt":"2021-12-18T12:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/?p=820"},"modified":"2022-02-10T11:35:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T11:35:34","slug":"fashion-industry-a-stitch-in-time-will-save-more-than-nine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/fashion-industry-a-stitch-in-time-will-save-more-than-nine\/","title":{"rendered":"Fashion Industry: A stitch in time will save more than nine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Apurav Anurag, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Patna<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>
\u2013 Mahatma Gandhi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Mahatma Gandhi had said these words in the context of the imperialist forces then, but his words are much relevant even today in the fashion industry. Since the beginning of civilization, there are three basic needs that a human possesses – food, clothing, and shelter. With the current world population of 7.8 billion<\/a> (as of January 2021), the fashion industry is bound to be huge, as it fulfils the second basic need. With the present market value of nearly $758 billion<\/a>, it is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.5% since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the unchecked growth coupled with inefficient policies, the fashion industry has thrown both ecological as well as socio-economic challenges.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ecological Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fashion industry is a voracious consumer of water. It takes  <\/strong>7500 litres<\/strong><\/a> of water to make a single pair of jeans, equal to the amount of water an average person drinks over<\/strong> seven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fashion industry is considered the <\/strong>second-largest industrial polluter<\/strong><\/a>.  <\/strong>It accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions. According to World Economic Forum (WEF), <\/a>the total of these emissions is greater than the international flights and maritime shipping emissions combined! Researchers have found that 5 lakh tons of microfibers<\/a> are released into the ocean each year while washing clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As per NITI Aayog, nearly 600 million people in India are facing high to extreme water stress. Ironically, India is the largest virtual exporter of water and the <\/strong>largest<\/strong><\/a> cotton producer<\/strong> (a water-intensive crop).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fashion industry has also maximized the possibilities of zoonotic diseases<\/strong> (a disease that passes from an animal to a human). More than 40 million animals<\/a> are killed every year for fur and skin in a gruesome way. The helpless animals go through the horrors like separation from their offspring, living in overcrowding cages, castration, tail cutting, injection of illicit drugs, dehorning etc. It also raises ethical questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Socio-Economic Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roughly 60 years ago, the Aral Sea was the fourth-largest lake in the world. Today, its eastern basin has been completely dried up. Many experts believe that it was primarily caused due to the setup of extensive irrigation networks in the 1960s to cultivate cotton<\/a> to feed the textile industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, 22 colonels and 5000 troops<\/a> were deployed to check the pollution in the Citarum River in Indonesia, which is vital for 25 million people. The textile factories that lie along the banks of the river were held responsible for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “Noyyal” is a sacred river in Tamil culture. Today, it is known to be a dead river. The primary cause is attributed to the Tirupur’s textile industry located along the river and discharges the wastewater into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rise of Fast Fashion: Amplification of Problem<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast Fashion is one of the most dominant business models in the fashion industry. Consumers are offered constantly changing collections at attractive prices. The shopping malls and e-commerce websites frequently provide discounts on bulk shopping, giving rise to Compulsive buying behaviour (CBB) among the consumers. This is the reason why clothing production has doubled since 2000. Today roughly 150 billion garments are produced annually<\/a>, which is enough to provide 20 new garments to every person each year. Indeed, we buy more than we wear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we care?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article 21 of the Indian constitution mentions \u201cProtection of life and personal liberty\u201d. Through various judgements, the supreme court of India has widened the scope of article 21 and held that \u201cRight to a clean environment\u201d is implicit under Article 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the fashion industry is the second-largest polluter, it is grossly undermined by the policymakers, people, and mainstream media. We also lack a cohesive voice of the climate activists and intellectuals on this issue. As a result, we mostly see the culprits of the environment in automobile exhaust, factories, construction, mining, stubble burning etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is paramount to reduce the water and carbon footprints of the fashion industry. There is also a need to develop a robust mechanism to tackle the waste generated from the fashion industry. For instance, as per World Economic Forum (WEF), one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should bring the fashion industry under the ambit of EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) rule, which currently covers electronic and plastic waste. India should also increase its research and development expenditure (% of GDP) which is declining since 2008<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must realize that the price tag of our clothing has a substantial intangible environmental cost. Our future is at stake, and the time for action is now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apurav Anurag, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Patna \u201cThere is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness.\u201d \u2013 Mahatma Gandhi While Mahatma Gandhi had said these words in the context of the imperialist forces then, but his words are much relevant even today in the fashion industry. Since the beginning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[256],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-did-you-know","tag-jeans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}