Fact check: 9 common myths about ethical and sustainable fashion

Buying from eco-consicous manufacturers is not one of the simplest ways to undertake sustainable fashion. Your on-line returns do not find yourself the place you suppose they do. Investing in luxurious fashion over quick fashion would not essentially forestall employee exploitation.

MYTH: Buying from “eco-conscious” or “sustainable” manufacturers is one of the simplest ways to scale back your fashion footprint

TRUTH: The greatest approach to scale back your fashion footprint is to purchase fewer issues. Get probably the most out of your present wardrobe by mending or altering previous clothes, restyling drained items and buying and selling objects with associates or by way of clothes swaps (post-pandemic). If it’s essential to purchase a brand new merchandise, attempt to discover it second-hand. Some firms even supply restore applications, like Patagonia’s “Worn Wear,” or assist to resell worn objects. Researching sustainable manufacturers is useful, however shopping for one thing new ought to be the final possibility, not the primary.

MYTH: Luxury fashion is extra sustainable than quick fashion

MYTH: The costlier the garment, the much less probably employees have been exploited

TRUTH: Many mid-priced and premium labels really produce in the identical factories as low cost and quick fashion manufacturers. This implies that every thing from employees’ rights to the situations through which they work in, could be exploitative, no matter value level. What’s extra, the worth of a garment doesn’t assure that employees had been pretty paid, as a result of the price of labor solely makes up a small fraction of whole manufacturing prices.

MYTH: Donating previous garments is a sustainable approach to clear out your closet

TRUTH: While charities and thrift shops do give away or promote a portion of the garments they obtain, your donated garments are more likely to find yourself being shipped abroad to resale markets in creating nations, which may negatively affect their native industries, or in a landfill. Only 10% of clothes given to thrift shops is definitely bought. The US alone ships a billion kilos of used clothes per yr to different nations. Africa receives 70% of world secondhand garments.

MYTH: Brands that promote sustainability are sustainable

MYTH: Most garments could be recycled

TRUTH: Clothing could be tough to recycle, partially due to the way it’s made. For one, many materials are constituted of blends (of cotton and polyester, as an example), which should be separated if the fabric is to be become a brand new garment. In the US, lower than 14% of clothes and sneakers thrown away find yourself being recycled. But “recycling” can be a broad time period that may be damaged down into “downcycling” and “upcycling,” and the distinction issues. Downcycled clothes typically wind up as fibers used for house insulation or carpets. In Europe, lower than 1% of collected clothes is definitely recycled into new clothes, based on Circle Economy.

MYTH: It’s not value it to restore low-cost garments.

TRUTH: Mending a quick fashion merchandise might imply spending what you paid for it, however conserving the identical garments in rotation is the very best factor you are able to do to scale back your carbon footprint. You may also discover ways to perform small repairs at house to maintain prices down, together with changing buttons, fixing damaged zippers, resewing free seams and hemming pants.

MYTH: Your on-line returns are resold to different prospects

TRUTH: Your returns might find yourself incinerated or in landfills. It’s typically cheaper for firms to get rid of returns than to examine and repackage them, and labels could also be unwilling to donate the objects for concern of cheapening their model or damaging their exclusivity. A CBC report in 2019 highlighted this follow, mentioning that the amount of on-line returns has additionally elevated by 95% over the previous 5 years.

MYTH: Your garments are from the nation listed on the tag

TRUTH: Your garments could also be assembled in that nation, however the tag cannot reveal the advanced chain of labor that went into making them. “Your label won’t tell you where in the world the cotton was farmed, where the fiber was spun into a yarn, where the yarn was woven into a fabric (or) where it was dyed and printed,” states Fashion Revolution’s report, “How to Be a Fashion Revolutionary.” “It won’t tell you where the thread, dyes, zips, buttons, beading or other features came from.” To encourage labels to be clear about their provide chains, Fashion Revolution has been selling the hashtag #whomademyclothes?, asking customers to tag manufacturers in selfies with clothes tags seen.