Vintage fashion and the effects of the manufacture of clothing in the environment

In recent times wearing clothing vintage has become fashionable and a way to make a strong statement about ourselves. Either for financial or political reasons, many of us are no longer satisfied with the purchase of cheap clothing which ends at the back of our wardrobes, weeks later.

Production of denim (or any other clothes) inevitably affects the environment. This starts growing cotton used to do so, send the finished garment, often around the world. 2900 Litres of water it takes to produce a pair of jeans and 766 gallons of water to produce a single t-shirt (National Geographic, 2010). Cotton also frequently farms used chemicals and pesticides, creation of greenhouse gases.

However, this is only a small part of the overall environmental impact. Each year in the United Kingdom who buy 2 million tons of clothing, with 1.2 million tons in the landfill. Textiles are now the fastest growth in household waste sector, in which the media as the "effect of Primark" (The Daily Telegraph). Many traders now rotate stock as often as every six weeks. This is unsustainable financially both from an environmental perspective.

Despite this it would be unfair to blame only the environmental impact on retailers, after all produce such large quantities of clothing if not buy it. But things are slowly starting to change due to the growing interest in buying organic and ethically origin. Many merchants are using organic cotton, for example.

The use of organic cotton is a small step towards the reduction of impact fashion and clothing manufacture has on the environment. It would be wrong to say that vintage clothing does not affect the environment in any way; sometime it was manufactured by the same process. However with clothing vintage is certainly less harmful in the long term because not throw our clothes cut greenhouse gases.

For the time being only 16% of the clothes that we have of United Kingdom are recycled every year (Daily Telegraph). Buy vintage promotes recycling, we are less likely to throw a finding precious vintage that we are a bargain of high street. With this in mind, (if you choose to purchase new or vintage) the environmental impact of the manufacture of clothing is definitely an issue worth thinking about.

Sources:

Hidden water - supplement (2010) of the magazine National Geographic, April issue.

Gray, l. (2009) "Primark effect" indications government unit for cutting clothing sent to landfill sites, The Daily Telegraph, February 20, 2010.

This article was written by Sarah Leeds, creator and owner of clothing vintage site: http://www.retrodenim.co.uk.