The textile, clothing, and
fashion industries combine to create a massive impact on the planet and people who work along the apparel manufacturing supply chain. My latest
article on
The Guardian covers this issue on Guardian Sustainable Business’
Waste & Recycling Hub.
It was not always this way. Older relatives in my family recalled the one nice coat, a few shirts and pants, and a pair of shoes that they meticulously ironed, polished, and repaired if necessary.
No longer.
Cheap fashion has been part of our daily lives for years and the textile industry has long been shipped abroad where workers often toil in horrid conditions.
Companies are starting to respond.
Walmart, for example, is close to sourcing children’s clothes that are only made from organic cotton. The shift is described in Edward Humes’ book,
Force of Nature. One of the book’s most engrossing part is when Humes describes a moment when a sustainability consultant tossed a Walmart executive a plastic bag of sand to demonstrate how much pesticides go into making one cotton shirt. The point was made, and now Walmart is the largest retailer of organic cotton clothes on the planet.
Nevertheless, much work needs to be done, and more innovation is necessary to deal with both waste and wanted clothes. Recycling and waste diversion only scratch the surface of this problem.
Of course, there is one solution: buy better made and therefore, less clothing.
Read the entire
article and share your thoughts.
About The Author
Leon Kaye
Leon Kaye is the founder and editor of GreenGoPost.com and its advisory division,
GGP Media.
Contact him to discuss how he can work with your organization or event.
His focus is making the business case for sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
He writes for San Francisco-based
Triple Pundit,
Inhabitat and now
The Guardian, for which he writes about corporate responsibility, water, and green building. He has also written for AIA's
Architect Magazine.
Leon works out of Fresno and Silicon Valley, California, and when he has free time, he enjoys hiking, gardening, cooking, weightlifting, and planning his next trip to one of the 60 countries he has visited. He has an MBA from USC's Marshall School of Business and is also a proud graduate of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) and Cal State-Fresno.
The textile, clothing, and fashion industries combine to create a massive impact on the planet and people who work along the apparel manufacturing supply chain. My latest article on The Guardian covers this issue on Guardian Sustainable Business’ Waste & Recycling Hub.
It was not always this way. Older relatives in my family recalled the one nice coat, a few shirts and pants, and a pair of shoes that they meticulously ironed, polished, and repaired if necessary.
No longer. Cheap fashion has been part of our daily lives for years and the textile industry has long been shipped abroad where workers often toil in horrid conditions.
Companies are starting to respond. Walmart, for example, is close to sourcing children’s clothes that are only made from organic cotton. The shift is described in Edward Humes’ book, Force of Nature. One of the book’s most engrossing part is when Humes describes a moment when a sustainability consultant tossed a Walmart executive a plastic bag of sand to demonstrate how much pesticides go into making one cotton shirt. The point was made, and now Walmart is the largest retailer of organic cotton clothes on the planet.
Nevertheless, much work needs to be done, and more innovation is necessary to deal with both waste and wanted clothes. Recycling and waste diversion only scratch the surface of this problem.
Of course, there is one solution: buy better made and therefore, less clothing.
Read the entire article and share your thoughts.
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