This is the equivalent of 3 million barrels of oil.Īs for climate change, clothing production accounts for 8 to 10% of the world's carbon emissions more each year, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, Insider and the U.N.

The report also estimated that roughly half a million tons of microfiber end up in the oceans annually at the hands of fast fashion and your washing machine. 'But the fashion industry is widely believed to be the second most polluting industry in the world' - right behind big oil. 'When we think of industries that are having a harmful effect on the environment, manufacturing, energy, transport and even food production might come to mind,' the U.N.

In total, UNCTAD estimates that the fashion industry uses roughly 93 billion cubic meters of water each year, enough to quench the thirst of five million people. This is the equivalent amount of water that an average person drinks over seven years, the international body noted.

The truth, though, is that fast fashion uses an outrageous amount of water - something to the tune of 7,500 liters for one pair of jeans, a United Nations news report found. While the human externalities of rampant consumerism - with child labor and horrible conditions in factories - are well documented, the environmental cost is less publicized and less understood. 'I wanted to stop being the problem and start being the solution,' he told AFP about the firm he created in 2018. His company makes insulation panels using discarded clothing. MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP / Getty Imagesįranklin Zepeda founded EcoFibra to tackle this largely-unseen environmental disaster. Women search for used clothes amid tons discarded in the Atacama desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile, on September 26, 2021. Therefore, eventually up to 39,000 tons of unsold and unwanted clothes get trucked to the driest desert in the world each year, where they literally blanket the dunes in layers and layers of discarded textiles. Municipal landfills will not accept the textiles because of the chemical products contained therein, NY Post reported. Unfortunately, clothing may take hundreds of years to biodegrade, if at all. It's no one's responsibility to clean up and no one will pay the necessary tariffs to take it away, Aljazeera reported. What doesn't get sold in Santiago or smuggled and shipped to other countries stays in the free zone.

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