How Much Water Does Fast Fashion Use?
The fast fashion industry produces cheap and trendy clothing items. This industry focuses on current trends and demands of the consumers to quickly and cheaply produce a fashion item.
Generally the fashion item is used for a shorter period of time before it’s being discarded. Brands often respond to the latest trend and produce a large quantity of clothing to sell at an affordable price.
But this business model requires quick turnover and uses a large amount of resources to make clothing items. Water is especially used for the manufacturing process of fast fashion items.
We will understand the use of water in the fast fashion industry. In this post we will explore how we use water in fashion industries. How we can take initiative to reduce the environmental footprint.
So How Much Water Does Fast Fashion Use?
Well, it can be seen that about 93 billion cubic meters of water is annually used by the fashion industry. The water footprint of the industry is essential to produce textile.
Textile production uses this water in a different fabric. Water is used for each type of fabrics including natural cotton or man made items.
Research shows that the fast fashion industry is the largest consumer of water in the world. The water footprint can be found in different steps to where fast fashion goes.
How Fast Fashion Contributes to Water Use?
The fast fashion industry is one of the significant industries that contributes to the use of freshwater. This industry is growing significantly. Its glamorous surface comes with a darker side that significantly impacts the planet’s finite resources.
It’s one of the most alarming expectations of modern fast fashion. This sector is immensely using the water, especially the fresh water that consumers should be concerned about.
This comes with the environmental impact. There are several ways the industry is using this precious resource. These include-
Growing Cotton
Whenever we produce fast fashion items we need cotton and fibers for this industry. It takes about 2700 liters of water to produce a single piece of t-shirt made of cotton.
This is roughly equivalent to the average person drinking over 3 years in the United States. Cottons are grown in areas with limited water resources.
That means it’s also depleting the local water resources. We use different pesticides and insecticides for growing the cotton that also degrades the underground water resources.
Dyeing and Finishing Fabrics
After we bring the cotton for further processing, we turn the fabric from a harvested material and send it to the dyeing process.
Dyeing is also one of the largest contributors to the use of freshwater. The textile items require water to rinse, clean and fix the fabric.
This industry contributes 93 billion cubic meters of water annually. Dyeing alone is the largest contribution to industry’s total water waste.
The fast fashion companies use heavy chemicals and synthetic dyes. They use water for printing and coloring purposes.
This also heavily pollutes the water and contaminates the local water resources. In developing countries like Vietnam and China, water contamination heavily impacts the health of the residents.
Water Used In Garment Production
Another water use can be seen during sewing garments. Even after producing the product the water is used for ironing and washing.
Though the amount of water is low, it’s also a significant player when we consider the vastness of the fast fashion industry.
This industry is using different resources and using water in different steps of the clothing life cycle.
The Total Water Used In Fast Fashion
If we consider the consumption of fast fashion items, we can see that 2700 liters of water is used for every single cotton t-shirt. A pair of jeans requires 7,600 liters of water to complete.
The water intensive processes including dyeing and rinsing of the single pair of shoes also use 8000 liters of water.
If we consider the fast fashion industry, it is responsible for 20% of the global industrial pollution. It’s also a significant contributor to the global water scarcity.
The Impact of Fast Fashion and Water Scarcity In The Fast Fashion Industry
The fast fashion industry consumes a large amount of resources. It can lead to resource depletion and water scarcity in different areas.
Especially the vulnerable areas like in India and Bangladesh where water is a precious commodity. It is expensive to produce crops like cotton and that leads to water shortages.
It uses pesticides that are used for producing cotton that have harmful chemicals for the cultivation.
It shares a negative impact in this farm area. It can also contribute to an ecological unbalanced and unsustainable environment.
What Are Alternatives?
If we consider water use in the fast fashion industry we can also ask ourselves what are the alternatives to mitigate this problem? What can be done to reduce water consumption?
And what can be done to make the industry profitable yet sustainable? Well, the first thing we can do is to be more focused on water sustainability.
The most effective way to reduce water is to switch to more sustainable fiber like organic cotton.
Conventional cotton requires more water. The organic cotton requires less water for manufacturing the clothes.
It does not rely heavily on irrigation. We can focus more on production of fiber in hydroponic systems.
It can increase production and yet use 90% less water and pesticides. That also increases sustainability.
We can adapt different technologies like waterless dyeing technology to make the product.
We can use the least water footprint that can eliminate the vast need of water in the dyeing process. The fashion brands also adapt to the recycling of water to produce the products.
This reusing of water in multiple stages of production can significantly reduce the water footprint. It also prevents the contamination of local water supplies.
If the consumers are more focused on buying high quality garments that lead to a longer use of fashion.
It can also reduce water intensive clothing. This step can also support the brands that prioritize sustainability in the practice.
Last words about the fast fashion water use
Use of water is essential for the fashion industry. But the amount of water wasted in the fast fashion industry can accumulate to billions of liters annually.
This water use can lead to environmental degradation, water scarcity and pollution.
If we take significant measures to reduce water use we can create a sustainable environment.
The industry players need to be more innovative to the consumers and need to change their habit of over consumption and over purchase.
It can save a significant amount of water resources. So by putting sustainability in the fashion practices we can reduce the wastage of fashion items.
This can also help us to reduce the waters. When we think about the cost of water, the true cost for fast fashion is much higher than we might think.
We can minimize the impact if we work together.
