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Essay: Sustainability issues in the fashion industry (focus on India)

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  • Subject area(s): Environmental studies essays
  • Reading time: 7 minutes
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  • Published: 7 March 2022*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
  • File format: Text
  • Words: 1,908 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 8 (approx)
  • Tags: Fast fashion essays

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Executive Summary

Since the drafting of the Indian Constitution, there is a system of law across the Indian nation. India maintains a hybrid legal system with a mixture of civil, common law, religious law within the legal framework inherited from the colonial era and various legislation which were introduced by the British. Indian laws also adhere to United Nations guidelines on Human Rights law and Environmental laws.

Fashion law in India is still an unexplored law by our country. Professionals who have been appearing in the market of Trademark, Copyright, Patent, Intellectual Property understand the need for action in this field. The textile and clothing sector is one of the oldest and leading sectors in our country. In the year 2019, there were a few articles and blogs on the internet which stated the importance of fashion law and what is fashion law. From there we could see an increased expansion, in which lawyers & students practising law coming forward to this subject.

The fashion industry is one of the largest industrial sectors across global capitalism. The fashion supply chain is diverse and complex, spanning tiers that include raw materials, designs, spinning, harvesting, yarn production, dyeing, weaving, cutting and final garment.

The fact that clothing has always been a social and environmental issue for our country because it not only affects the relationships among the communities but also implies the existence in personal and social life.

The fashion industry is the second largest pollutant in India leaving a disastrous impact on the environment. The consumer behaviour of purchasing the newest trend as quickly as possible leads to the retailers demand which results in the cheapest manufacturing supply which results in high volumes of chemicals from textile dyes being dumped into rivers, production of cheap and hazardous fabric and excess wastage of water for production.

INTRODUCTION-

Throughout the years there have been constant attempts by the fashion industry to provide unique and distinguishable designs which are creative and are not falling in the line with piracy paradox and of course with a non-utilitarian variation. However, just because the fashion industry remains innovative we cannot sideline the exploited labour and damage to the environment which is caused. When consumers pick up designs from stores, obviously they pay huge prices for them but what they do not pay is the damages caused to the environment and the labours who were involved in making that particular piece. Thousands of gallons of water and variant of toxins are discharged in the water bodies and on land in the process of manufacturing and dyeing process. As a result of the demand for new designs, every season results in the manufacturing of designs for cheap & exploited labour resulting in “Fast Fashion” which is considered against the sustainability of the environment. The very famous incident had happened in Bangladesh, where a building had collapsed resulting in the death of over 2700 people. The effects of fast fashion were seen so negatively that it demanded the manufacturers to produce tons and tons of garments. Furthermore, due to the rise in production in the fashion industry, the demand for manufactured fibres such as polyester has doubled in the last few years. To give a clear view about the negative impact on the environment here is a small illustration, to maintain cotton approximately 3 per cent of the global water is used each year when a manufacturer manufactures a single cotton T-shirt and a pair of jeans around five thousand gallons of water is used and in a study by Hermes it is said that the usage of water in producing such amount will increase by 40 per cent by the year 2030.

Though fast fashion retailers do not use cotton they use fabrics such as polyesters and others which again result in a substantial effect on the environment due to high demand and early turnover rates. To everyone’s knowledge, the polyester which is used for making such fabrics is extremely hazardous as it is made by the process of acidic gasses, crude oils and organic compounds. Thus Fast fashion brands should introduce new styles which focus on more durable quality and less wastage and damage to the environment.

Social impact on the Fashion industry in India

With the new trends running faster each season, the retailers find it very difficult to cope up with the market requirements, it is clear that such inadequate resources burden the entire fashion supply cycle which supposedly results in social impacts on the entire industry. The very famous “Rana Plaza Incident” from Bangladesh resulted in the death of more than 2700 labours and more than 1300 injured labours. This incident led to a major outbreak in the entire fashion industry all across the globe. A 7 storey building collapsed where factory workers were being exploited by their skills. During the investigation, it was found that the building which collapsed was constructed for retail shop outlets and small shops, but that place was rented out by the factory owners and was running their clothing factories for manufacturing of garments. The manufacturing of clothes led to the use of heavy machinery in the building which caused serious damage to the building. Visible cracks were also noticed by the workers 2 days before this incident took place, and an inspection was done but no proper and immediate action was taken. The factory workers were entitled to a safe working environment and safer conditions which should have been chemical ridden and much more eco friendly.

Table -2 Source: (Parvathi, Maruthavanan, Prakash,2009)

Hazardous waste generation

The culture behind fast fashion is contributing massively tonnes of waste each year. Certainly, the fabrics which are being used by the fast fashion brands and the consumers who have high demand are not the pure and natural fabrics as such brands buy these fabrics in bulk for an extremely lower price which are chemically or mechanically recycled into raw material for manufacturing and selling to other developing countries. The technique of making the consumer feel that their clothing is out of style and no more in fashion and thus they demand in for more clothes even after wearing the existing cloth only once thus these amounts of waste every year.

Conventional Cotton Farming

Cotton is considered a very water-intensive crop with over 50 % of cotton fields in the world requiring irrigation, these irrigated cotton fields produce over 70% of the total cotton grown in the world. Approximately 26% of the world’s insecticides and more than 11 % of the pesticides are used to make cotton. On average 3644 cubic meters of water is used to grow one tonne of cotton in the top fifteen countries.

High Impact Dyes

The dyeing and treatment of textiles result in industrial water pollution eventually reaching the sea and contamination of global waters. In Greenpeace’s investigatory report entitles Toxic Threads: The Big Fashion Stitch-Up, the group tested 141 samples of clothing from 20 different brands. The results found that every one of the brands sampled contained traces of hazardous toxins- the worst offenders being Levi’s, Zara and Calvin Klein. Certain chemicals were found in the reports which included nonylphenol ethoxylates, animes and azo dyes. Many of these chemicals are though illegal in the United States but other countries such as China, have tax regulations.

Many dyeing processes involve a range of toxic chemicals such as dioxins which possibly disrupts hormones and others. For instance, only about 80% of synthetic dyes are called direct dye to retain by the fabric; the rest is flushed out from the garment. Every year around 40,000-50,000 tons of dyes are flushed into rivers.

Uses of Water in the Fashion industry

Water is the foundation of all global supplies yet it is being used at an alarming rate. In India, more than 50% of the population has no access to safe drinking water and about 200,000 people die every year for lack of access to safe water. India is currently facing the biggest crisis in its history as India has just 4% of the world’s freshwater. The Textile & fashion industry undoubtedly is the second-largest consumer of the world’s water supply as it relies heavily on water to survive the supply chain of the industry.

In India alone, the textile industry used approx. 425,000,000 gallons of water daily and approximately 500 gallons of water are used in the production of just one pair of jeans. Dyes, speciality chemicals, and other finishing chemicals used to produce the final garment are all bathed in the water with all chemicals. From the irrigation of cotton crops at one ned of the supply chain to the domestic washing of clothes the water pollution impact the human and ecological demand for water. Approximately 19% of freshwater is extracted for industrial uses as per the World Development Indicators Annual freshwater withdrawals.

India’s water crisis of often attributed to a lack of government planning and industrial and human waste. With an already critical balance between water supply and demand, studies have already shown the water demand will exceed the amount supplied by 40 per cent by the year 2030.

Need of Fashion Law in India

By the understanding of the term “Fashion Law” we come across the words like trademark, copyright, patent, licensing agreements, contracts, modelling licenses etc but what we do not come across is the social impact and the environmental impact. This is the need of an hour in India to protect from the damages which are being created for the people environmentally and socially. By creating a specific law in India where all the guidelines and necessary preventive steps can be taken to protect the surrounding by the governing laws for the industries and fashion outlets. Just because the fashion industry remains innovative and successful despite a lack of protection does not automatically undermine the need to protect this industry. Had any specific law been passed, the fast fashion industry would still have experienced a crucial setback as copycatting of certain designs and could have legally prohibited by affecting the social and environmental industry. The manufacturing and textile plants in some country are known for exploiting the labour and submitting the worker to dangerous working conditions. Similarly, the high volume of production leads to an excess amount of fabrics production which again leads to the use of lots of chemical and dyes which again the extra water is lead to discharged into the ocean.

Conclusion

It is important to ask ourselves as consumers, s it truly worth it to make a purchase of products that has so many negative impacts? As a result of the cyclic nature of fast fashion and the inadequacy of eco-friendly ways, the fashion industry actually should innovate and create ways to cut down the cost without disturbing Earth’s natural resources. The fashion industry and the brands can create their collections not only thinking about the economic benefits for themselves but in a more eco-friendly way that does not harm the environment and even saves humanity. This has been seen in the textile industry, that when there is a search for cheap labour and raw materials, the industry primarily expands to countries such as India, China and Indonesia where less complicated regulations enable companies to more readily contaminate their surrounding environments. Sustainable or ethical fashion is a response to environmental and social conventional production. Consumers must consider how their buying habits and patterns of apparel use affect the environments and culture surrounding them. To highlight the awareness about the environmental impacts of products, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF),

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