The hidden polluter in your wardrobe: How fast fashion is fuelling the next pollution crisis

Trend is part of our lives, we breathe it daily. Go searching, and also you’ll discover garment shops all over the place: from small roadside stalls to large malls, from native outlets to world manufacturers. Trend by no means goes out of pattern. However have you ever heard of the time period quick trend? Let’s discover out what it means.

What’s quick trend

Quick trend is usually linked to sustainability and environmental considerations. It refers to clothes that’s mass-produced rapidly to maintain up with the newest traits. The objective? To get new designs from the runway to your wardrobe in file time, on the lowest doable price.

To fulfill this rising demand, the style business churns out large portions of clothes at extraordinarily low costs. Manufacturers race in opposition to time to launch new collections earlier than their rivals, making a unending cycle of manufacturing and consumption.

This pattern gained momentum with globalisation and the growth of e-commerce. Social media influencers, on-line buying, and immediate fashion updates have fuelled the demand for recent collections nearly each week, making quick trend a worldwide phenomenon.

The way it advanced

Trend has come a great distance. Prior to now, new collections arrived solely with the change of seasons, spring, summer time, autumn, and winter. Designers would showcase their work, and that single assortment set the pattern for months.

However issues modified as individuals started craving extra selection. With the rise of know-how and the explosion of social media, trend traits began spreading as quick because the web. To maintain up, manufacturers started producing new types at breakneck velocity, turning trend into a relentless cycle of “what’s subsequent?”

Quick trend waste at landfill
| Photograph Credit score:
Wokephoto17

How is it harming the atmosphere

The style business is accountable for about 8-10% of worldwide carbon emissions and practically 20% of the world’s wastewater. However how does a easy T-shirt or pair of denims trigger a lot hurt?

Quick trend depends upon resource-intensive processes. From rising uncooked supplies to manufacturing and world transportation, each step consumes large power and assets. These processes launch greenhouse gases, pollute water, and pressure pure ecosystems.

What makes it worse? Most fast-fashion garments aren’t constructed to final. Consumers typically put on them just some occasions earlier than discarding them. With traits altering nearly each week, garments pile up in landfills, creating an environmental nightmare.

Trend’s soiled footprint

Water air pollution and overuse: Dyeing and ending materials require big quantities of water and use poisonous chemical compounds. Wastewater from factories typically flows into rivers, poisoning aquatic life and contaminating consuming sources.

Carbon emissions: From rising cotton to manufacturing and transport, the style provide chain makes use of fossil-fuel-heavy power sources. This business emits extra CO₂ than worldwide flights and maritime transport mixed.

Microplastic air pollution: Many fast-fashion clothes are fabricated from artificial fibers like polyester, nylon, and acrylic. Each wash releases 1000’s of microplastic fibers into water our bodies, harming marine life and coming into the meals chain.

Landfill disaster: Most fast-fashion garments are low-quality and trend-driven, resulting in quick utilization. Over 92 million tonnes of textile waste leads to landfills globally annually, taking a long time to decompose.

Useful resource depletion: Producing a single cotton T-shirt requires about 2,700 liters of water—sufficient for one individual to drink for 900 days. The race to supply low cost clothes results in soil degradation and extreme pesticide use in cotton farming.

Many individuals assume cotton is an eco-friendly selection, however cotton farming is resource-hungry. It depletes soil vitamins, depends closely on pesticides, and calls for big portions of water, damaging ecosystems and lowering land fertility over time. If this cycle continues, the style business alone may eat 1 / 4 of the world’s carbon price range by 2050, in response to a examine by the Ellen MacArthur Basis.

Can we cease it?

Sure, however it wants motion from each the style business and customers like us. Selecting high quality over amount, reusing and repairing garments, and donating or swapping as an alternative of throwing away could make a giant distinction.

Thrifting and shopping for pre-loved outfits cut back the demand for brand new manufacturing, whereas supporting sustainable manufacturers encourages moral practices. Even small steps, like washing garments much less typically and in chilly water, assist lower down on microplastic air pollution and water waste.

Large manufacturers are slowly shifting to round trend fashions, and governments are introducing laws, however actual change begins with us. Each buy we make is a selection, so earlier than shopping for that stylish outfit, ask your self: do I actually need it, or will the planet pay the worth?

Merchants unfold out secondhand garments on the market on the Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana
| Photograph Credit score:
NIPAH DENNIS

Revealed – September 14, 2025 12:00 pm IST