With fast fashion under the spotlight for its environmental impacts, innovators are stepping up to create sustainable clothing options.

Shopping for clothes used to be an occasional event – something that happened a couple times a year for birthday parties, back to school supplies, seasonal outfit changes, or outgrown clothes. Today, when an article of clothing goes out of style or gets worn out, it is tossed in the trash. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, clothes made up to nine per cent of all municipal solid waste produced in the United States in 2014. In the past decade, fast fashion has erupted, and while retailers scramble to meet the demands of consumers, a fad, biodegradable fashion, has caught traction in efforts to make fashion more sustainable.

When shopping, it is easy to walk into Forever 21 and buy an item of clothing without thinking about the repercussions of fast fashion. According to the retail industry, fast fashion is used to describe trendy clothing inspired by recent styles seen on celebrities and on the runway which then is made affordable for the average consumer.

The speed and volume at which clothing is produced and then marketed to consumers is mind boggling. All of this to keep up with consumer demands, completely disregarding the huge toll fast fashion has on the environment and its resources. Fast fashion requires a lot of energy, significantly contributing to greenhouse emissions. This makes it one of the three biggest contributors to global warming, right after the oil and meat industries. The fashion industry is also the second largest polluter of clean water globally after agriculture.

Common fabrics such as cotton, wool, cashmere, linen, silk, and bamboo all have the chance to be recyclable, but only if they are not mixed with other fabrics or dyed. In today’s clothing industry, polyester is the most commonly used fabric to create garments. As a raw material, polyester is made from petroleum as a raw material and is hard to recycle without losing its quality. Cheap to produce, it is derived from fossil fuels which contributes greatly to global warming. It is a dangerous fabric to the environment because it sheds microfibres that increase the levels which contribute to the increasing levels of plastic in oceans when it is washed.

Recently, more people are starting to realize the detrimental effects of fast fashion and are beginning to take action. Theanne Schiros, an assistant professor in the math and science department at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, and some innovators are using live organisms to build fragments of biodegradable fabrics, which are environmentally friendly. These researchers believe that more clothes can be bioengineered from living bacteria, yeast, animal cells, fungi, and algae. All of these materials have one thing in common: they can break down into substances when thrown out, which reduces waste and pollution. Aside from being biodegradable, these organism have the ability to be grown to fit into a mold. This mold prevents any excess material to be thrown out because it helps make exact amounts of textile needed to make a piece of clothing.

Swiss manufacturer, Freitag has designed a clothing line with 100% biodegradable materials. The buttons on their shirts are made out of nuts, while the metal button on their pants can be taken off and reused by consumers. When the clothing is eventually thrown out, it will break down in a composter after a couple of months. Despite this, the clothing is designed to be extremely durable when worn.

In terms of fast fashion companies, H&M[5] was one of the first to implement a program to reduce its carbon footprint. The fashion powerhouse produces Conscious, a collection of clothes and accessories sold in H&M stores that are made of recyclable materials and organic cotton. The company takes the initiative to create advertising campaigns encouraging people to donate old clothes and offers discounts to customers who donate old clothes to H&M stores.

Some criticize the company for these initiatives because of the excessive amounts of clothing H&M produces and sells daily to consumers globally.They view H&M’s initiative of attempting to be environmentally conscious as pure hypocrisy. Given the size of the company and its widespread impacts, being held accountable for its practices is important. If H&M is going to run campaigns and ads to convince consumers to be more environmentally conscious, the company must also step up and be willing to take real steps make actual effort to make fashion more sustainable, especially for today’s very demanding consumers.

Still, while H&M is responsible for creating excess textiles, the good work the company has done cannot be entirely discredited. H&M has been applauded for being the first fast-fashion brand to eliminate PFC (polyfluoroalkyl) chemicals from its products. PFC chemicals are notorious for the environment and the human body. The chemicals are commonly used to make water-, grease- and stain repellent coatings on a vast amount of goods.   According to yearly sustainability reports, the company’s recycled fabric rose to 1% of the materials H&M used in 2015, up from 0.2% from the last year.  

As harmful as fast fashion is, there is still hope. More companies are beginning to address the importance of environmental sustainability, realizing that it is fundamental for success and important for the environment.  

Sustainable fashion is not only about producing clothes, shoes and accessories in environmentally and socio-economically sustainable manners, but it is also about sustainable consumption and use. While fashion companies must continue to look for more sustainable ways to create clothes  and accessories, consumers should also take a step back and question their choices. Do you really need that dress that Gigi Hadid was wearing in her last Instagram post? Think about it. And think about the environment.

By Nishat Chowdhury

Please note that opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views and values of The Blank Page.