One Pair of Jeans or Ten Years of Drinking Water?!?

Ever wondered how much your wardrobe really costs? No, I don’t mean monetarily. Have you ever paused to think about what a simple pair of jeans could be costing the environment? An estimate suggests that the cost of production of a pair of jeans is equivalent to an average person’s drinking water supply for 10 years. Yes, read that again. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The fashion industry produces 10% of all humanity’s carbon emissions and is the second-largest consumer of the world’s water supply in addition to polluting the water resources in the process. What’s worse is that not much is being done about it. There’s a lack of awareness at the consumer’s end and fashion houses are yet to take substantial progressive steps. Leading fast-fashion houses like Zara and H&M come out with close to 24 and 16 collections each year. Consumers are often instilled with a sense of endless catching up with the current trends. Sure, fast fashion makes shopping for clothes fun and affordable, but it comes at a steep cost. What’s more, a lot of this clothing, close to an estimated 85%, is either burned or dumped in a landfill, resulting in increasing the toxic load.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that every year USD 500 billion in value is lost due to clothing that is barely worn, not recycled, and not donated. (FYI…One garbage truck of clothing and textiles is sent to a landfill or burned every second.)

While a few steps towards conscious fashion have been initiated and companies are now looking at environment-friendly alternatives in their fabric choices and production methods, the real change makers and catalysts still remain the end consumers.

For starters,

• Don’t be a slave to meaningless fashion trends and instead invest in classic pieces.
• Be conscious about your fabric choices (a simple cotton shirt costs you a little more than 10$, it costs you 700 gallons of water, almost three years’ worth of drinking water).
• Buy what you need, donate what you have but don’t use.
• Get creative with your wardrobe, recycle and reuse. (Psst… capsule collections are all the rage. Take inspiration from insta reels.)
• Thrift it. Thrift shopping promotes a circular economy. Get over the snob appeal and hunt your way into thrift and vintage stores for timeless pieces. (There’s a reason they were loved by someone else before you…Ehem! Does not apply to exes.)

If the fashion industry continues to function on its present trajectory, the damage could mount up to 26% by 2050.

The future is in your hands. We live in an economy that functions on a demand-supply model. Demand what is conscious, demand what is responsible, and demand as much is essential. The world has only just begun to heal, while many parts are still caught up in the eye of the storm. It is imperative amends are made immediately before another environmental apocalypse hits us and the world becomes irretrievable (and trust me, wearing the season’s latest will not save the world).