Every year about 2 billion jeans are produced worldwide. That is a lot of jeans! Jeans are also typically made out of cotton which is very resource and labor intensive.
According to the Environmental Justice Foundation, “99% of the world’s cotton farmers work in the developing world where low levels of safety awareness, lack of access to protective apparatus, illiteracy, poor labelling of pesticides, inadequate safeguards, and chronic poverty each exacerbate the damage caused by cotton pesticides to low income communities.” Unfortunately this is where a lot of communities are located and they are the most vulnerable to exploitative work. One major example is India, it is home to more than one third of the world’s cotton farmers. Cotton accounts for more than half of the pesticides used annually even though cotton only covers 5% of land under crops. Cotton farmers are in a hazardous line of work, according to one study, “in a single 5 month observation period, 97 cotton farmers experienced 323 separate incidents of ill health. Of these 39% were associated with mild poisoning, 38% with moderate poisoning, and 6% with severe poisoning.” Spraying pesticides is very toxic to your health and unfortunately many cotton farmers are people of color. According to the study, “between 25 million and 77 million agricultural workers worldwide suffer from acute pesticide poisoning with at least 1 million requiring hospitalization each year.” These symptoms include: tremors, headaches, seizures, vomiting and even death. The long term effects of spraying pesticides are severe depression and impaired memory. Children of color are disturbingly, directly involved in the cotton pesticide application in India and Uzbekistan. “In Pakistan, Egypt, and Central Asia child laborer's work in cotton fields either during or following the spraying season,” according to the Environmental Justice Foundation. This is truly disturbing to know kids are being forced into this dangerous work with little protective gear if any at all. The most commonly used pesticide for cotton farming is a pesticide called Aldicarb which, “absorbed through the skin can kill an adult.” Imagine a kid spraying that without any knowledge in how dangerous this chemical is, truly heartbreaking. Another hazardous substance used in dyeing the jeans is synthetic indigo dye which makes the jeans blue. According to a study, it is “toxic, carcinogenic reducing agents are used for this purpose and fume generated during dye reduction causes different health hazards.” Denim manufacturers also are using synthetic material to cut costs. They mix it in with the cotton. According to the Daily Mail, “synthetic clothes contain toxins including brominated flame retardants and perfluorinated chemicals which are classified as cancer-causing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”
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Out of all the pieces of clothing you could own jeans are among the worst when it comes to the environment. According to Vice, “2 billion jeans produced annually worldwide.” And every year we throw away about 13 million tons of clothing which ends up in the landfill.
Denim uses a lot of chemical dyes to make it blue. In China, “the Xintang’s rivers smelled foul- manufacturers dumping chemical-laden wastewater directly into local waterways”, according to nrdc.org. A lot of harmful metals like lead, copper and mercury have even been found in the river. Many people rely on these rivers to get clean drinking water from or to bath in. They use a ton of water, to grow “(2.2 pounds) of cotton it can require up to 7,660 gallons of water.” Let’s compare that to growing the same amount of tomatoes which only require 76 gallons of water. Most people try to drink 8 glasses of water a day which is about half a gallon of water. Think about all the water that could have been saved to grow food or for drinking. The fashion industry in general has accelerated our climate crises. According to the United Nations, “global production of clothing and footwear generates 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.” This is expected to increase by almost 50% in 2030. Let’s not forget about how the fashion industry exploits its garment workers. The U.S. Department of Labor report found evidence of “forced and child labor in the fashion industry in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Turkey, Vietnam and other countries.” Today, Remake Our World is calling out The Children's Place for cancelling orders from Ethiopia and delaying payments by 6 months. Imagine your boss telling you to come to work and they’re not paying you for the next 6 months. That’s just insane, most people wouldn’t be able to pay rent or food. They are taking advantage of people of color! Just look at this shocking statistic, “Ethiopian workers are the lowest paid in the global garment supply chain, earning about $26 a month, compared to $95 in Bangladesh and $326 in China.” That really blows my mind! This is unacceptable. The Children's Place, there is no excuse for not paying the factory that makes your clothes when you make almost $2 billion in revenue. Pay your garment workers properly! “Tamaru who works at the factory, usually makes $27 a month, working 9 hours a day, 6 days a week. His wages have been cut in half making buying basic food unaffordable, ” according to The Guardian. “We are a company with 95% women workers. Some [of the workers are] mothers,” the supplier said. Asked what the company could do legally to recoup the hundreds of thousands of dollars lost, the supplier responded: “How do you fight such a big US corporation? They have endless pockets.” But, The Children's Place isn’t the only brand exploiting Ethiopian workers, “H&M, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger set up factories for producing low-cost garments.” H&M has made its net worth at almost $20 Billion. These fashion brands clearly have more than enough money to pay all of its garment workers. This is what happens when you continue to ignore the people and cut costs. That is how mass wealth is accumulated. I don’t care if they sell clothes that are made out of recycled fish nets. Because the people who made them are starving while the decision makers at H&M make their billions. H&M illegally laid off 1,200 garment workers in India without notice. H&M’s factory is called Gokuldas Exports (GE), 900 of the laid off workers were in the garment & textiles workers union. None of these fashion brands care about their garment workers. 28-year-old Shobha said “I’ve been producing for H&M for more than 6 years. and just one fine day they laid us off with no notice. They’ve left our families to starve.”
Sign the petition to tell these Fashion Brands to pay up here: https://www.change.org/p/unless-urban-outfitters-jcpenney-c-a-payup-millions-of-garment-makers-will-go-hungry Stay up to date here: https://remake.world/stories/news/payup-brand-updates/ Please spread the word by sharing this with your friends and family. Boycott these brands. Choose to thrift instead. Demand change by calling these brands out! We cannot have one without the other! If you are buying recycled clothing from a fast fashion brand but they refuse to pay their workers properly and they have to work in slave-like conditions what kind of a world are we voting for? If we want to see real change in this world we need to have a society that protects our environment and our people. Sustainable fashion is about producing clothes in an environmentally sustainable way, but also about sustainable patterns of consumption. Brands must implement sustainability into their production chains. Some examples of how brands can be sustainable include: second hand clothing or rent-able clothes, up-cycled or recycled materials, natural and organic certified materials, high quality and timeless designs that will last, etc. Why is sustainable fashion important? Fast fashion harms the environment. It produces more carbon emissions than international flights and shipping combined. We need a system that focuses on slower production and more eco-friendly materials and manufacturing. So many resources are wasted from the typical fast fashion production model. In fact, every second a one garbage truck of textiles is burned or thrown into the landfill. Talk about a waste of time, energy, money and resources. Fashion is also the second biggest consumer of our precious drinking water. In fact, half a million tons of synthetic microfibers into the ocean annually. Here are some examples of the fashion brands that have been caught destroying their clothing: Ethical fashion is often concerned with human and animal rights. As it relates to humans, ethical fashion applies to working conditions, fair wages and treatment, and no child labor. It is made locally, empowers women and artisans, protects cultures and people of color. Some examples of how brands can be sustainable include: fair trade, giving back to the community by donating, no sweatshops, made to order, working closely with manufacturers to ensure workers are okay, working with local artisans and focusing more on handmade goods.
Why is sustainable fashion important? We have uncovered the horror stories of how these brands continue to choose to work with manufacturers that abuse their workers and strip them of their human rights. The fast fashion industry exploits & forces women of color to produce cheap & trendy clothes at an unsustainable rate. It often uses modern slavery practices to achieve this and includes: forced labor, forced marriage, slavery and human trafficking. Here are some examples of the fashion brands that have been caught exploiting their workers: Pear and cherry tomatoesToday I wanted to share a photo tour of our garden ~ so come along! First up we see an arrangement of all the different types of tomatoes my aunt planted from store bought tomatoes! What a great way to get more bang for your buck! I don’t really know their names but I do know the yellow ones are called pear tomatoes, haha they’re great for soup which is perfect for the fall. They’re more watery compared to your red and elongated tomatoes which are more crunchy in texture and taste great by just eating them raw! I believe the round and red ones are called cherry tomatoes; they're sweeter and soft. We’re waiting for the green pear tomatoes to ripen, they become a beautiful yellow color. beesThe next photo is a tribute to our friendly neighborhood bumblebee or as I now like to call them sky puppies (thank you tik tok)! Not gonna lie usually when I hear buzzing I get scared, we have quite a few wasps near us. But I was super relieved to see this cutie pollinating our garden. Thanks to these cute bumble bees we can have delicious tomatoes and a great harvest! Here's an organization working to protect our bees which are vital to our ecosystems: The Honeybee Conservancy Goji berriesHere I'm holding the goji berries I just picked! My brother and I love picking these because they’re fun to hold, they’re like gummy bear texture and kinda squishy like a stress ball. Anyways you can eat these by themselves after you wash them. They’re sweet but some are a bit bitter. It’s often used in Chinese herbal medicine, we put ours in soup or just make tea by pouring hot water over them! ZUCCHINIWe had a ton of zucchini’s this year and they’re super good grilled with olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper. And they’re huge, one of them can feed a family of 10! tHAI cHILIESOur Thai chili peppers! I’m super excited for these because we like to add chili’s to a lot of our dishes for that extra kick. Unfortunately I have a low tolerance with spice, haha my family makes fun of me! But I do like a little spice in my dishes. Be careful when chopping these because they will burn your eyes if you touch them! FigsLastly we have our delicious fig tree! I honestly didn’t think we could grow these in Canada but we do have very hot summers so it makes sense. I think we waited a little too long to eat them haha we thought they would turn purple but apparently these just stay green when they’re ripe! But they’re seriously so good, they taste like honey! My aunt said it took 2 years for her to grow from a single branch and we finally got to taste the fruits of her labor! Anyways my aunt is the master gardener here and the reason why we have such an amazing variety of fruits and vegetables! She doesn't like to be in photos so here's a photo of me watering the garden. We have 2 rain water barrels that we get our water from. I’m very excited to have my own garden one day so I’ll continue to learn lots from her.
About 2/3 of our clothing comes from fossil fuel-derived synthetics and making these materials is a carbon-intensive process, according to Fashion Revolution. In 2015, 98 million tons of oil was used in the textile industry. That’s expected to skyrocket to 300 million tons of oil by 2050 according to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation. It’s one of the main reasons why fast fashion produces more carbon emission than all international flights and maritime shipping. We need to pressure fashion brands to stop using plastic! Polyester is a common type of material found in our clothing. Polyester is made from fossil fuels which emits a ton of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and accelerates climate change. When we wash clothes that are made from plastic they actually shed microfibres that often end up in our oceans. Half a million tonnes of microfibers come from our clothes. This is 16 times more than the plastic microbeads found in skincare and cosmetics. Some other plastic materials to watch out for are nylon, acrylic and elastane (spandex) according to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation. Plastic materials use huge quantities of non-renewable resources like fossil fuels and are very energy intensive to make. Plastic is also not biodegradable and will stay in our environment for many years. Many birds and animals often mistake it for food and will ingest it and die from it. What can we do about this?
I think that when brands see a general interest in the public to use more natural fabrics or recycled ones over plastic then they will change the type of material they use. Let’s pressure fashion brands to do better for us and the planet! Petition to reduce plastics in our oceans. Please share this with your friends and family! Did you know that even high end fashion brands use unethical labor? It’s not just cheap fast fashion brands. In fact, studies found that luxury brands like Prada, Fendi and Dior were some of the worst at protecting their workers from exploitation. According to a study in the Daily Mail, “Walmart did slightly below average [in ethics], but still better than a lot of luxury brands.” If Walmart does better than you in ethics then you must be doing real bad, yikes. It's also very difficult to assess whether or not these luxury brands are using sweatshops or take action when they release a statement because they are very secretive about the factories they use. According to Vice, “high-end, expensive clothing companies including Prada, Fendi and Hermes are among the worst offenders, with Chanel coming in dead last, according to the report that ranks clothing brands on transparency.” “Workers in poor countries are often made to pay thousands of dollars in recruitment fees that are deducted from their salary.” This fact blew my mind! Basically the sweat shop will hold their passports hostage so their workers can’t run away until they pay $7,000 which is a lot when they only pay you in pennies per day. So they’re literally stuck in these horrid conditions making clothes for the rich for the rest of their lives. Even Gucci has been exposed by its former employees. They have been called out for their inhumane working conditions and mistreatment of workers. According to the study conducted by Li Wang & Robin Stanley Snell, there was an alleged miscarriage that happened due to being overworked and there was no compensation. How heartbreaking and disgusting. Gucci clearly has more than enough money, they made $10.8 billion in sales, like come on! In the study, these workers also reported strict limitations to using the washroom, drinking or eating. It’s like they’re in jail, jeez. There’s also alleged reports of faking their workers working hours and forcing them to work overtime without being paid. Here's some action itemsWe all know about the Chernobyl nuclear accident but have you heard of the Bhopal Disaster? According to the Atlantic, it has been named --the world’s deadliest industrial disaster. Even though the explosion happened in 1984 it still affects the people who live there today, poisoning their water, children and lives.
The pesticide plant was owned by — Union Carbide Corporation (1917)— an American chemical corporation, owned by — Dow Chemical Company (Bought in 2001). Merged to become DowDuPont (2017). On December 3, 1984, 40 tons of Methyl isocyanate spewed from the pesticides plant and burned the throats, eyes, and lives of thousands of people. According to the Illinois Dept. of Public Health, “Methyl isocyanate (MIS) is a chemical used in the manufacture of polyurethane foam, pesticides and plastics. It is easily burned and explosive.” The death toll was heartbreaking, 20,000 people died from the explosion and over 600,00 were injured. It even affects babies in the womb. All due to the negligence of this multinational company. Here are the key players: its current owner, DowDuPont, the state government of Madhya Pradesh and the central Indian government. In 1989, those who were affected by the disaster were only given 25,000 Indian rupees (roughly $2,200). The site still has hundreds of tons of contaminated waste. The Bhopal disaster still affects the villagers till this day. A mother named, “Munni bi was diagnosed with bladder cancer—her grandson, Anees, was born with skin that looked burned and limbs that lay flaccid and useless; he died five years ago at age 4, never having spoken a word.” Absolutely horrifying what chemical corporations can do to our people and planet. But the horror does not end there. DuPont’s was also caught dumping chemical waste on neighboring land— poisoning the water supply for the local West Virginian residents. Resources Documentary: One Night in Bhopal Movie: Dark Waters Support: The Bhopal Medical Appeal In 2018, Burberry was caught destroying $36.8 million worth of its own merchandise according to Vox. Why not just burn cash instead? They are clearly too rich to know what to do with their money, they made $3.6 billion in revenue that year. They weren’t the only ones, H&M burned 60 tons of brand new clothing in 2013. Here are some other brands that have been caught destroying their merchandise: Urban Outfitters, J.C. Penny, Victoria’s Secret, Eddie Bauer, Nike, Michael Kors and many more.
So why do brands do this? It seems like a huge waste of money, time and resources. According to Vox, “brands destroy product as a way to maintain exclusivity through scarcity.” Here’s what a manager at Abercrombie & Fitch had to say, “Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't want to create the image that just anybody, poor people, can wear their clothing. Only people of a certain stature are able to purchase and wear the company name." Buying brand name is a way to show off how much money you have. I never understood the obsession with buying brand name though. The quality doesn’t actually get that much better with luxury brands. Many actually use sweatshops which means they still don’t pay their workers well. Even though a single bag can be almost the same price as buying a house. So just because something is expensive it doesn’t always mean it’s ethical. Many clothes from fast fashion brands are actually destroyed in India. There’s a documentary showing that these women are actually told to shred brand new clothing. According to Vox, the women think that the people in the West [that is us] must not be able to afford water to do our laundry. Lol these brands should be ashamed, they’re a symbol of wealth but in whose eyes? How do we define wealth and success? Because burning brand new clothes just sounds like a waste of money. The sad truth is, according to the United Nations, every second a garbage truck of clothes is burned or sent to the landfill. The fast fashion industry emits more CO2 than international flights and maritime shipping combined. So does being wealthy and successful mean we should just start throwing away our money and resources and destroy the planet? If so I think we need to redefine what success means in our society because that is just sad. Sign the petition here. Let's make destroying brand new clothes illegal! There are so many people in need of warm clothing, instead these big fashion brands rather flush them down the toilet! Why is affordable and accessible mental healthcare important to you?
Today I wanted to dive deeper into the importance of universal mental health care. I think it’s super important that everyone has access to affordable mental health care. I wanted to share a personal story on why this is so important to me. Maybe this will resonate with some of you. You are not alone. When I lost my job, I felt not only a loss of financial security but also a loss of self worth. I equated my self worth to the fact that I had a job. When I didn’t have one I felt like my whole family looked down on me and questioned if something was wrong with me. I fell into another depression cycle and being afraid to go out and seek help or even just ask was so difficult. Also realizing that I wouldn’t even have the proper insurance to afford a therapist was draining. I fell into this crippling depression where I would just lay in bed and feel guilty and horrible about myself and had no motivation or will to leave that. Being isolated didn’t help either, especially not being able to feel the support and love from my significant other in person. Lots of things have changed since then, but it was because I had support systems in place to help me get through this dark time like talking to my family in person since I live with them. I also took up gardening which helped a lot and gave me back a small sense of purpose in my life. Being able to video call my friends and my boyfriend was also really helpful because it helped me feel less alone. Having this amazing platform also helped me get out of this slump. But not everyone is lucky enough to have these kinds of support systems in place. Which is why we need affordable and accessible mental health care. The petition is in the link in my bio. Future Majority is a youth-led organization building grassroots power for young people across the country and working for accessible health care for everyone. They will be taking the petition to town hall to tell our politicians that affordable and accessible mental health is what we NEED! Thank you to Future Majority for valuing my work and partnering with me to spread the word on the importance of mental healthcare! Where all Canadians, especially BIPOCs, members of the LGBTQIA+ communities, and all those left out by our healthcare systems, have access to this essential service. #Sponsored So please SIGN and SHARE this here: https://bit.ly/mentalhealthcarenow3 |
AuthorHi everyone, I’m Elizabeth! I am a Chinese American and Canadian environmental activist focused on creating awareness on environmental justice issues and tying them to fast fashion and our waste and climate change crisis. I’m very open about my mental health. I talk about these important topics on my platform Archives
March 2021
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