Recently there have been more and more fashion companies following "fast-fashion" and making it easier to obtain the newest and latest fashions at lower prices but also lower quality. This creates more waste as people throw out these cheaper fabrics to buy the brand new style for the season. This interested me because I am very aware of the effects that humans are having on Earth. We create more waste each year and increasingly damaging the Earth, especially with the creation of these cheaper clothing lines. This follows my values because I want to find a way to create less waste among the fashion industry. I value the beauty of this planet and would like to find a way to slow down the destruction of it for future generations. I am a Retail Major with an emphasis on Fashion Merchandising. In class we focus on the fashion industry in every aspect and the waste it creates is just one of the many areas that we study. I qualify to write about this subject because I focus primarily on fashion and can study the way the industry works. This helps me have a better insight on the issue and what we as humans can do to prevent this from becoming a continuing issue. Instead of throwing out all of the clothes, recycling and reusing old clothes should be reinforced and emphasized.

In the first article that I found, Luz Claudio defines the main issue as fashion industries are globalizing "fast fashion" which allows for retailers to offer the newest clothing lines at lower prices by using cheap labor and cheap fabrics in China. Claudio describes this by stating, "The prices make the purchase tempting and the disposal painless."  What makes this a problem, is that the fibers used to create such a low priced, low quality item are harmful to the environment. Not only does it create more waste because people throw away their "old" clothes for the newest fashions advertised, but to create the fibers they use pesticides and petroleum; which can both be very harmful to the environment, especially in a landfill where it will eventually end up. During the war, clothes were taken in to be repaired and reused for other families. If we were to do this today, it could reduce up to 10% of waste in landfills. The clothing does not disintegrate well in landfills and when it starts to decompose, the pesticides and petroleum contaminate the soil. This could lead to contamination of plants or water. The author of this article, Luz Claudio, is a very credible source. She is an associate professor of preventive medicine and chief in the Division of International Health at the Mount Sinai School and has experience with various environmental programs. She has a bias towards slowing down the popularity of fast-fashion and wants to reinforce the idea of recycling and reusing clothing.

Another article that really caught my attention was one by Louise Morgan and Grete Birtwistle. The article refers to fast-fashion becoming increasingly more popular because it is bringing in higher profits for the fashion industry. The article also offers solutions for the issue, such as recycling and reusing clothes. They offer a lot of statistics to back their claims. They estimated that there was 1,000,000,000 kg of textiles that went into landfills in the UK every year. 95% of which could be recycled by a textile recycler. They also examined what was making consumers, primarily young women, to want the newest clothing lines every few weeks. They found that magazines and advertisements with celebrities promoting the lines creates this want and "need" from the young consumers. They concluded that the stakes for the fashion industry would be that they are going to lose profit by raising prices, but it is also damaging the environment by putting toxins into the landfills. Both authors work in the Division of Fashion, Marketing and Retailing at the Glasgow Caledonian University and have a lot of experience in the fashion and retail industries. They have a bias towards stopping the increase of fast fashion and finding solutions to stop the amount of waste going into landfills.

The last article I found focuses primarily on the stake holders and the sustainability movement that was created in response to the fast growing fashion industry. They carry out a study that looks more into depth on how the fashion retailers are being impacted by the sustainability movement. This article shows that the market has heavy competition between companies and how sensitive the fashion supply chain is. The sustainability movement was created in order to lower environmental effects and harsh labor conditions that are being practiced in the nations creating the clothing, such as China. The stakes that face the planet and ecosystem is that it is the highest CO2 emission and over 25% of pesticides are used for cotton. The stakes in the industry would be the loss in jobs, especially low paying wages in China. The industry could also take a major hit in profits. The authors of this article are three professors at a college in Europe that focus primarily on environmental impact. They show a heavy bias towards the positive impact that the sustainability movement is having on the fashion industry. They provide statistics from the study that they carried out to back up their claims.

My research question can be argued in a variety of ways. The main opposition to my research question is that the creation of these clothing lines is causing a huge increase in profits in fashion industry. Some could also argue that it creates many jobs, especially in China where the labor is cheap. One could also argue that the lower prices are beneficial to those in poverty and allows more clothes to be available to the general public. Some perspectives in the articles I have read have made the issue more clear to me as I see the statistics and the amount of waste produced each year. I could consider revising the question to "How can we stop the waste created by the fashion industry?"

