Ultrafast fashion: Looking good results in medical and environmental concerns

AiDA was just one of the AidLab projects being showcased ahead of London Fashion Week, which started Friday – Copyright AFP JOSH EDELSON

The fashion industry produces up to 100 billion garments each year. Each year, approximately 92 million tons of clothing end up in landfills. It is responsible for roughly 10 percent of annual global carbon emissions.

Devansh Sood is the founder and CEO of Fique a clothing wear brand that offers protective Silver Shield-certified tested garments that block out Radio Frequencies (RF) and Electromagnetic Frequencies (EMF) produced from electronic devices, cell towers, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and power lines.

The brand was created by the fashion Activist Platform The Elegant Initiative (#elegantinitiative) and The Silver Lining Film, promoting the harmful effects of technology, such as everyday devices and electricity sources.

Sood points out that often fashion garments contain unsafe levels of toxic chemicals which can harm wellbeing and health. Toxic chemicals do not wash out, but they can leech out of clothes and be absorbed by your skin, potentially causing health problems.

Global Fashion Industry Waste

According to Sood:

• Up to 100 billion garments are produced by the fashion industry every year.
• Each year, as much as 92 million tons of clothing ends up in landfills.
• Only 20 percent of textiles are collected for reuse or recycling globally.

As an example, Sood mentions, a CBC investigation revealed that some of the most popular ultra-fast fashion brands on the planet had been selling toxic chemicals to the public, hidden in clothing and accessories.

Ultra fast fashion takes everything harmful about fast fashion and speeds it up. That means faster production cycles, faster trend churn, and faster to the landfills. The clothing is ultra plastic, with at least half of these garments made from virgin plastics that will shed microfibers into waterways and the air for years to come.

The negative impacts on workers and the environment reach new lows

Here, Sood says, scientists found that a jacket for toddlers, purchased from Chinese retailer Shein, contained almost 20 times the amount of lead that Health Canada says is safe for children. A red purse, also purchased from Shein, had more than five times the threshold.

For this, researchers tested 38 samples of children’s and adult clothes and accessories. One in five had concerning levels of chemicals, like lead, PFAS, and phthalates – a group of chemicals – often used to make plastic more durable, can interfere with some peoples’ reproductive hormones.

Phthalates are a family of chemical compounds primarily used to make plastics, PVC, or vinyl flexible and pliant. Phthalates are the most commonly used plasticisers in the world.

Phthalates have received significant attention due to their ubiquitous nature in industrial products and their potential for toxicity in the human body.

Furthermore, the research suggests that exposure to lead—a neurotoxicant—can damage the brain and nervous system, impacting growth, development, and behaviour patterns. This is a form of toxicity in which a biological, chemical, or physical agent produces an adverse effect on the structure or function of the central and the peripheral nervous system.

With another area of concern, fashion is one of the most labour-dependent industries in the world, as each piece of apparel travels through a complex supply chain.  From the pickers harvesting the cotton to the yarn spinners and the workers manufacturing the garments – exploitation exists at many stages in the making of clothes.