Enough of fast fashion? Young people are in favor, according to this British study

Will 2022 be the year of general good resolutions around fashion? This is what a new British study points outproduced in the wake of the Glasgow 2021 Climate Change Conference which ran from 31 October to 12 November 2021.

58% of young Britons aged 18-24 turn their backs on throwaway fashion

At this COP26, the University of Hull conducted a survey of 2094 adults. Among this expected representative sample, 58% of young people aged between 18 and 24 want it turn your back on fast-fashion and change your shopping habits. »

In this same age group, 25% of those interviewed already opt for the rental of clothing and/or second-hand items. While a among people over the age of 55, only 5% consider second-hand purchases.

In the UK, clothing rental and upcyling has already had a chance to make headlines this year, which may partly explain this practice’s spike in popularity. For example, influential TV presenter Holly Willoughby is proud to use this type of service. Carrie Johnson, wife of the British prime minister, even rented her wedding dress. The latter also rented a suit for £34 a day for Cop26, just for the occasion. For the first time in three years, Emma Watson too walked a red carpet, on behalf of the planet: the Earthshot awards ceremony where she wore an outfit that was supposed to be eco-friendly. But symbols are no longer enough.

Young people, especially women, want to battle fast fashion

This survey conducted by the University of Hull with the help of YouGov (a research institute founded in London in 2000) also reveals gender differences: 51% of women say they want to wear rented and/or secondhand clothes, compared to 21% of men.

Professor Dan Parsons, director of the University of Hull’s Institute for Energy and the Environment, is keen to point out The independent how much the new generations are the most motivated to turn their backs on fast fashion is a sign of ita more than urgent change of mentality for the planet :

“It is encouraging to see that young people are moving towards a new society that cares and is aware of the environment. Secondhand, renting and saying ‘no’ to throwaway fashion is an important step in the right direction. »

Only we will still have to live with the consequences of our throwaway culture for decades, if not centuries, as the discarded clothes created by the emergence of fast fashion were able to play a large part in what this professor considers a ” tsunami of microplastic waste around the world “.

After the stone, bronze and iron ages, the plastic age?

According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the fashion industry uses around 93 million cubic meters of water every year. Approximately 20% of all wastewater would come from textile dyeing and processing each year. UNEP also lists approximately half a million tons of plastic microfibers are dumped into the oceans every year. This is what particularly leads Professor Dan Parsons to alert the public:

“The volume of plastic currently circulating in the world means that we have indeed entered a new geological period. Geoscientists call it the Anthropocene but the prevalence and distribution of plastic waste in the environment means that we will come to call it plasticene, I think. OR the plastic age. »

In addition to his dramatic consequences on the environment both now and in the long run, fast fashion also poses social problems regularly underlined. And this, whether it is produced on the other side of the world (remember Rana Plaza), or even in the middle of London, as an investigation into the Boohoo case recently demonstrated, suspected of modern slavery in the Leicester district.

Every gesture counts in the fight against forced labour, modern slavery and accelerated ecocide in which we can therefore refuse to take part.

Front page photo credit: pexels-ron-lach-8306371

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