The UK is the biggest exporter to Ghana. In fact, the UK produces the most clothing waste in Europe. And we’re the second largest used clothing exporter in the world, after the US. Fast Fashion’s Plastic Problem, a new report from the royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce (RSA), looks at some of the biggest online brands in ‘fast’ fashion: Asos, Boohoo, Missguided and PrettyLittleThing, analysing 10,000 recently-listed items, balanced across different product categories. It’s a cliche to say that we can’t shop our way out of a climate catastrophe but it’s absolutely true,” said Pham, the professor at Pratt. “The popular emphasis on individuals knowing where their clothes are made and who made their clothes–as ways of buying ‘better’–obscures the reality that the problems with the global fashion industry aren’t individual bad brands that just need to be called out. The problems are structural and systemic,” she said. These large amounts of plastic are creating significant environmental and social problems, including:

Finally, we can develop a deeper connection with our clothing, to slowly but surely change the way fashion works for us – either as individuals or together.The dangers to nature, the climate and all human life of an out-of-control fashion industry are immense. Fast fashion is designed to be disposable Western countries dump huge quantities of clothing on low-income countries. The reason is an abundance of cheap poor quality clothing. This practice is making the textile industry, and especially the fast fashion industry, even more polluting than it already is. The Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013 sparked a call for change in the global fashion industry. But 10 years on, more than 100 billion clothes a year are made – mostly from oil turned into polyester – by people working in dangerous conditions. This is fast fashion’s impact on people and the planet. As well as being inexpensive, polyester doesn't crease and can be washed at low temperatures. However, the laundry process also releases tiny fibers known as microplastics, which can be harmful to marine life. While polyester lasts for years, longevity is a double-edged sword — clothes can be worn many times but will likely end up in landfill, and don't biodegrade.

Brands have to be committed to say: I'm going to eliminate this raw material polyester, for example, from my supply chain in five to 10 years' time, forcing people to find alternative ways, which are more sustainable. It is the brands' CEOs' responsibility to do that," Lee said.of Mitumba imported to Kenya is of such bad quality that it cannot be sold anymore, meaning in 2019, Kenya had to deal with 150–200 tonnes of fashion and textile waste per day. The numbers are stark: only 10–30% of clothes you donate to the charity shops will be sold by them and charity shops are so overwhelmed with clothing that’s basically waste. So where does all this clothing go? Every single second, 2,625 kilograms of clothing becomes waste that needs dealing with in some way. This is enough to fill the Empire State building one and a half times every day, and Sydney harbour every year. 4. Nearly 70 million barrels of oil are used each year to make the world’s polyester Last year, with the forthcoming Strategy for sustainable textiles in mind, a large group of NGOs, including Plastic Soup Foundation, sent a joint report with recommendations to the European Commission. To put an end to the contested export of low-value discarded clothing which recipient countries can do nothing with, it primarily argued for: