Imagine this. In a hot, windowless room, young women are working side by side. They are workers in a factory in Bangladesh.1 Today they are making jackets. Together, they must sew hundreds of jackets every hour. That’s more than 1,000 a day. Each of these women will take home less than $3 for a whole day of work. One week later, these same jackets will arrive in the United States. They will show up in stores, where you can buy one for $14.99. These jackets are one example of fast fashion. When we say “fast fashion,” we are talking about clothes that are made quickly and then sold at very cheap prices. These clothes cost so little that many people can buy new outfits whenever they want — and then throw them away when they go out of style. More than 150 billion new pieces of clothing are made every year! Fast fashion may be cheap, but it has a dark side. Today, millions of people work in clothing factories called sweatshops. Many of these people live in China, Bangladesh, and other developing countries. These garment workers earn just a few dollars a day. And many of them are children or teenagers! In these factories, it is easy to get sick and to get hurt. Garment workers use dangerous chemicals to create and dye clothes. If they dare miss a day because they are sick, they might lose their job. Many people did not think about how their clothing was made until April 24, 2013. That is the day the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh collapsed. The factory had too many floors, too many workers, and too many machines.
This accident killed and injured thousands of workers. After the accident, many big clothing companies promised to do things differently.
They trained two million workers on how to work safely. They brought in engineers to check their factories.
The fashion industry is the world’s second-largest polluter! Here are a few reasons why:
1. Clothes are made using toxic chemicals. Dangerous gases are released into the air when certain materials (such as polyester) are created.
2. In the United States, 25% of all pesticides are used on cotton farms. Some of these pesticides can cause asthma and other health problems. Chemicals from these farms pollute fresh water!
3. The average American throws away more than 70 pounds of clothes every year. Most of this clothing is burned or left in a landfill, where it can take hundreds of years to break down.
The industry uses up a lot of natural resources. For example, it takes 1,800 gallons of water to make enough cotton for one pair of jeans. That is the same as 105 showers!
People are starting to see the ugly side of fast fashion. They are learning more about how their clothes are made.
And the clothing industry is starting to respond. In the United States, many small companies are creating clothes out of recycled or organic fabrics. Other larger companies are encouraging customers to recycle unwanted clothing.
Everyone must play a role.
Learn more about how your clothes are made and think carefully about what you buy. It can make a real difference.
Questions: Think about how making cheap clothes puts people and the environment in danger. Does this make you want to change how you and your parents shop? If so, how?
The author says that everyone must play a role to create change in this situation. What role can you play? How can you teach other people to help make a difference?
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