By: Shivani Shete
Over the past decade, the urgency of sustainability has become more prevalent than ever. With global warming concerns on the rise, being conscious of your life choices and the impact they have on the environment is crucial. Conscious consumer practices can be implemented into every lifestyle. Things as simple as driving less, shopping at your local farmer’s market, and using less water all contribute to a greener lifestyle and a brighter outlook for the planet.
The fashion industry is crucial in the environments wellbeing as it is the second largest polluter in the world. Fashion production makes up 10% of humanity's carbon emissions, dries up water sources, and pollutes rivers and streams. What's more, 85% of all textiles go to the dump each year. And washing some types of clothes sends thousands of micro of plastic into the ocean, thus harming wildlife and ultimately ending up in the human body through farming.
Clothing is everywhere and it’s a necessity. Once a hot new trend pops up online, consumers all around the world start buying and the industry is only growing. The production of garments filters into carbon emissions, water pollutants, and overall planet toxicity. Not to mention the waste! From the billions of gallons of freshwater used to create the garments, to the scrap materials and used clothing wastes that is being dumped into landfills by the truckload. The fashion industry as it operates today is not sustainable for the long-term.
A key contributor to this is fast fashion. Items that are made of cheap quality are more affordable and sell at an accelerated pace, but cause a vicious cycle of over-consumerism. Fast Fashion teaches the consumer to expect and desire constant newness and promotes low wages for overseas workers to produce low price garments in accelerated speeds. Not to mention the emissions created by sending the products overseas. At the end of the cycle, the millions of clothes tossed into landfills can take over 200 years to fully decompose. This alone sparks a variety of environmental threats, like deforestation, increased greenhouse gases, thus ultimately leading to global warming.
All of this puts substantial weight on purchasing clothes from sustainable brands to do our part as the consumer as we vote with our dollar. Once you sift through the fast fashion mountain, there are so many great ethical fashion companies that you can choose from!
Playground Active does their part in creating a planet friendly, low-waste product that blends the trends of the fast fashion world with the ethics and actions of a conscious company. Playground is carbon neutral, meaning they emits the same amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that they offset by other means. They achieve this with their recycled materials, low waste, minimal emissions, and planting a tree with every order to ensures care for our ecosystems.
Fashion plays a huge role in how the environment is functioning. Altering your life in small, simple ways will help preserve our beautiful planet. Be cognizant of your habits, consumerism, and implement fruitful, sustainable practices into your everyday routine. Together, we can do it.