A Composer's Diary: FFF week 6: Avoid “Fast fashion”!

Friday 12 March 2021

FFF week 6: Avoid “Fast fashion”!

I would like to contribute to FFF (Fridays for Future) in my own way: by sharing one concrete action per week that YOU can do, and which I have done, for combating climate change.

FFF week 6: Avoid “Fast fashion”!

WHY: Textile mills generate one-fifth of the world's industrial water pollution and use 20,000 chemicals, many of them carcinogenic, to make clothes.Most of the world's textile factories are in developing countries where governments can't keep pace with the industry’s massive pollution footprint.

WHAT CAN I DO: First of all: buy as little clothes as possible and use them for as long as possible. Seek for high quality clothes and look for sustainable clothing brands. Buy secondhand clothes and prolong in that way the life of clothes. Also when secondhand shopping I seek for high quality clothes that are in good shape, because if the piece of clothing has lasted the usage of one person and still looks good, that is for me an indication of high quality and hopefully a long lifespan for that piece of clothing.

If you order on the internet: only order that what you REALLY plan on keeping, DON’T use your “home as a fitting room”, because all the unnecessary sending of clothes leaves a carbon footprint. Moreover sent back items are often more hard to sell, and can result in ending up in non EU countries for burning, which is a waste of clothing (and vaste of carbon footprint that went into making that piece of clothing). In Scandinavia Finland is the country that sends most back Internet purchased products, up to around 40% of all purchased items. Please think before ANY purchase you make, if you really need this item. <3