There’s more to fashion than what meets the eye. From who makes our clothes to how they affect the environment, it can feel hard to get the full picture. Here are 10 fashion facts that help us understand what’s really going on.
- 2-8% of the global carbon emissions come from the fashion industry.
- The fashion industry is responsible for 24% of insecticides and 11% of pesticides used globally.
- 60% of materials made into clothing are plastic, including synthetic fabrics like polyester, nylon, and acrylic.
- Globally, we consume 80 billion new clothing items each year.
- Clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014, yet are kept for half as long.
- It takes 2700 liters of water to make one cotton t-shirt.
- 9% of annual microplastic loss to the oceans comes from the textile industry.
- Consumers wear their clothing 36% less before discarding it in 2023 than they did 15 years prior.
- Polyester shed 6 times more microplastics than nylon. Polyester is also the most commonly used synthetic.
- Around 2 million tonnes of microfibers are released into the ocean every year.
- Only 2% of garment workers earn a living wage.
- Shein launches around 1.3 million products in a year.
- Around 60% of Shein’s clothes are made of polyester.
- A Greenpeace study found that Shein clothing commonly contains hazardous chemicals that break EU regulatory limits — 15% of the clothing tested contained these chemicals.
