The ease of getting clothes fast and at a cheap price has become very popular among teens and young millennials in the past few years. However, the way some fast fashion companies mass produce their products and how they treat their employees has led to a problem that can negatively impact our environment and other people’s lives.
Fast fashion has become more popular with teens in the past few years. Fast fashion refers to affordable, cheaply made clothes at much cheaper prices. The term became widely known during the pandemic, when society was glued to their phone more than ever. Companies started to promote their products a lot more on social media and consumers were flooded with ads from fast fashion companies.
Some of the most popular fast fashion companies include Shein and Temu. Shein, founded in 2008, is an international e-commerce store that sells clothing, accessories, shoes and other items. The company is valued at $66 billion. Temu is another fast fashion retail app that has skyrocketed in the past few years. With a net worth of $35.5 billion, it has also become a giant in the e-commerce business. It sells everything from clothing to household products, all at a lower-than-average price. Both Shein and Temu have grown exponentially throughout the years and have faced questions regarding their labor practices. It also has us wondering how fast fashion companies can sell their products at such a low price, and how much waste they are producing.
Shein is the most notable company known for paying their workers low wages. In 2023, a US Congressional commission called out Shein for exploiting its workers. It found that workers were paid 4 cents per garment and were fined for any mistakes in sewing. Furthermore, their factories had workers working 18 hours a day with one day off a wspfmonth, which was a violation of Chinese labor laws. Another factory was found to have withheld a worker’s pay for the first month. A report, conducted by Public Eye, a Swiss human rights advocacy group, found that Shein factory workers were still working very long hours during the week. The group interviewed 13 textile workers who mentioned they were working 12 hours a day for 6 or 7 days a week (totaling around 84 hours weekly). Furthermore, the pay had not been much of an increase from the previous years. They concluded that after deducting overtime pay, the average monthly income was about $332 a month.
In addition to underpaying their workers, fast fashion companies are also having an alarming impact on the environment. The process of manufacturing one cotton shirt requires about 700 gallons of water and 2,000 gallons for a single pair of jeans. When throwing away your clothes that either don’t fit or are not in style anymore, they contribute to the 10 million tons of clothing in landfills. Once the clothing is thrown out, 66% is sent to landfills, where it takes years or even decades to decompose.
Students should develop greater awareness of the environmental impacts and the unjust pay for workers of the clothing companies they support. Their purchasing decisions can influence unethical labor practices and environmental impact within the fast fashion industry. Due to the rise of fast fashion, society tends to discard many clothing items quickly, which harms the environment because the clothing items are made of cheap and non-disposable materials that are then dumped in landfills. This is not only affecting humanity now, but will also have a negative outcome for future generations to come.
