Thread by @AjaSaysHello

Today because of the #IPCC report (it's isn't good news), I feel the need to remind you that participating in sustainable and ethical fashion is a crucial part of fighting the climate crisis. I get new people every so often so it's always a good time to revisit the facts.

Mitigating the climate crisis sounds scary and hard. But that's only because we have poor leadership. Many of the solutions to this ALREADY EXIST! We just need the type of leadership that will implement. This is an opportunity to create a revolutionary moment for humanity.

I know you feel powerless. I know I have in the past. I know that people tell you that individual action is pointless. But you know what individual action creates? A cultural shift. And without individual action, we will never have that societal and cultural shift.

What you need to understand is that the fashion industry contributes to the climate crisis. Global greenhouse emissions are sizable (but debatable depending on who you ask). Even the mistreatment of workers (who are mostly non white) comes with it's own planetary harm tied in.

Let's start with the planetary harm of fast fashion:
1. 93% of brands are NOT paying garment workers living wages (fashionchecker.org). All these folks are in the global South seeing the impact of climate crisis RIGHT NOW while additionally not paid fair wages.

2. Apparently 10-20% of pesticide use comes from the textile industry (cotton). You know how bee populations are dying out and without bees there's no food and without food, say bye to humanity? YES. THAT.
(That comes from: mckinsey.com/industries/ret…)

3. Less that 11% of brands actually implement any sort of recycling strategy. (But even those who claim to be recycling ... have some questionable shadiness going on. Often those bins seem more like a lure to get you into the store than anything else.)

4. 17 million barrels of oil are used a year to create ... polyester. So like we're not supposed to be digging for oil anymore at all. Why on Earth are we wearing so much of it? Oh and when you wash it, it shed's plastics into the ocean. (forbes.com/sites/jamescon…)

5. THE SCARY THING. 100 billion garments are produced each year. There's only 7.8 billion humans on our planet so that's like 14 times the human population when less than 50% of the planet can afford to participate in a trend cycle that relies on buying this much clothing.

6. Oh and water? 93 billion cubic metres of water each year for the fashion industry ... on a planet that is already seeing water wars and should expect more with the climate crisis. Oh and 20% of global waste water is used for dying these garments alone.

7. Oh and because we're buying so much clothes because of the trend cycle ... 92 million tonnes of textile waste is generated annually from this system. And guess where all that waste is dumped?

8. Well ... much of it is getting dumped right back on brown and Black people in the global South. earth.org/how-one-commun…

This entire fashion system is linear. Which means it's a line. We harvest the materials (where a non white person is robbed of labor and resources), we use the product (often in economic wealthier places) and then we dispose of the product often dumping in a non white country.

But in some ways it looks circular in it's harm to non white people. A brown or Black person is exploited in the production and a brown or Black person is exploited at the end of the garment's life cycle. This system runs on exploitation of NON WHITE PEOPLE (mostly).

And the industry NEVER improves. All it does is wait until workers in the places where clothing is produced start to gain agency and then it seeks out a new manufacturing port where it can exploit NEW victims for less money! It's vile.

But you know what the system needs most in order to stay operational? Our complacency. It needs you to throw your hands up in the air and say "oh well nothing can be done, why are you looking at me, there's no ethical consumerism under capitalism".

Marx didn't write those lines so we can use it to justify buying into microtrends and consuming five times more clothing than we bought in 1990 while dumping all the spoils of the system on people who don't deserve a waste crisis of excess!

BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS!!! You can participate in sustainable and ethical fashion without spending a dollar. Honestly, the misconceptions about what it looks like to take part in a better system really get my goat. The myths are deliberately discouraging.

Because consumerism is so embedded in brains, we have a world where the planet is on fire, folks are on here arguing about micro trend participation like it's a human right when the majority of it tramples the human rights of others and adds gasoline to the burning planet.

The first thing you gotta do to participate in sustainable and ethical fashion cost you nothing at all. It's UNPICKING your consumerism. That is the key to all of this, I fear. It's not fun but you're going to feel a lot better after you do it. Trust me. Been there, done that.

Let's do a short list of what participating with sustainable and ethical fashion looks like without consumerism. It's not just "buying better". There's roughly 100 things which can be done which don't look like buying.

1. Limit what you buy annually. Many of us say we can't afford to buy better or differently but if you're buying 68 garments a year (which is what the average fast fashion shopper is doing), you can. Even if you're not doing that it's important to slow down and keep track.

2. Learn how to repair clothes. This is something we've gotten away from but guess what? No one else is going to repair your stuff so if you're not willing to do it, it's now trash. Give your stuff a longer life by learning how to repair. There's a bajillion free tutorials.

3. Ever organize a clothing swap? Maybe it's time to do that. It's such a fun way to get something new-to-you and get your friends involved in the fun. Also if you have kids you should deffo be swapping clothes with your friends (you probably already do this).

4. Next time you're attending a fancy event, instead of buying a new formal outfit, see what you can borrow from a friend instead. No one needs a lot of formal wear even if ALL your friends are getting married. As a last resort consider renting instead of buying.

5. Learn how to make clothes. Do you wonder why it's so expensive? Do you think "I could do that". Well why not try? It will give you a lot of insight into why things cost what they do and this was life changing for me. (I was not great at reading patterns).