Why your closet is killing the planet

Where do you buy your clothes? A question often answered with brands like Zara, H and M,  and forever 21. These clothes are cheap and trendy but pay a secret high environmental and humanitarian cost.

The way such fast fashion companies work is simple, look at clothing on the runways and quickly emulate the clothes and get them on the retail floor. Fast. Cheap. Disposable.

The problem is making clothes so fast often means wasting resources, using child labor and cheap material

 That shirt you're wearing? Chances are it's made from polyester.

 Polyester is a staple in the fast fashion world. It's easy and cheap to produce but comes at a price, it takes around 2700 liters of water to make one shirt and can take anywhere from 20 to 200 years to degrade.

In 2015 the textile industry produced more greenhouse gases than international travel and maritime shipping combined, that's absolutely insane especially since now we keep our clothes only for half as long in comparison to 20 years ago, the average American throws away 80 pounds of clothing in a year.

And fast fashion brands are catching on to the rising backlash, now coming out with “sustainable” and “environmentally friendly” clothing lines. This is a wild example of greenwashing. Greenwashing is essentially when companies use fake claims to advertise a product as “eco friendly” or “ethical” which is often not the case and should be avoided.

Not buying clothes from such brands often isn't an option for people who can't afford higher quality clothing, so ways you can help are as simple as wearing the clothes you own for longer, not giving into trends, and swapping clothes with friends.

And while these options won't completely eradicate the damage from fast fashion brands they sure do help change people's mindsets.