3 incidents that tell you should appreciate whatever you put on your body right now
- campazine
- Dec 3, 2015
- 4 min read
ONE. Rana Plaza Collapse
In 2013, about 1100 garment workers in Bangladesh died because of the collapse of cracked building. Workers were asked to go back to work without providing safety assurance although warnings had been issued. This is because workers were often being rushed by the buyers, who are the clothing retailers to meet their strict deadline because we, customers, want a very, very, very fast fashion. Clothing retailers do not take too much care of their stakeholders' safety.
Source: The New York Times
"Those 1000 poor girls lost their lives because everybody didn't bother, didn't give a damn shit. And they just wanted the cheap price and the good profit... Everybody should take responsibility," said by an interviewee in "The True Cost" documentary by Andrew Morgan. This is obviously an implicit impact created by the consumers, who want faster and cheaper fashion, and the clothing retailers, who want even lower cost and bigger profit.
TWO. Environment Pollutions That Cause Health Problems.
50 million litres of highly toxic tannery waste water is generated by Kanpur's tanneries, it contains chromium, lead and arsenic that will cause severe environmental effects to its surroundings, and basically anywhere the river water flows to. It is the result of the leather processing. Tuberculosis, mental disability, eyesight problem, skin discolouration... because of the pollution. Not only leather, the cotton that is so widely used will also have an impact on the earth because of the heavy use of pesticides, that will harm the land, water, air, food supply, and it can even poison the farmers.
You can say it's the government's fault for not protecting the country, but we consumers, do we have no fault? Did we ever think twice about the leather goods we use that sit in your glamorous fitting room before we buy even more or throw them away, or the leather shoes that you wear only once or twice?
Hearbroken old man who has lost his wife due to severe pollution.
Source: The Toxic Price of Leather
THREE. Garment Workers Unable to Get Fair Wages.
A scene I watched from "Would You Still Buy That Dress After Watching This?" that I hardly forget:
from 22:45 An Australian reporter handed a jumper to a garment worker from Bangladesh and asked her if she has any idea how much that jumper that's made in her factory is sold in the clothing retailers' stores, she didn't know (now she does). When the reporter told her it's 60AUD, she was so shocked.
Why?
Most of them were only being paid $38 a month, who had to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Although today their wages have been raised to about $68 a month, these garment workers, who want to feed their family, provide their children's education, get a proper job, or go to school like most of us too, still have the lowest wage of the world amongst the garment workers. Can you imagine how much the clothing retailers mark up their prices? Do we give back enough to the people who involve in the making of our clothes? We might be happy with our bargains we get from the clothing retailers' big sales, but these people never have a chance to bargain their wages.
This post is about appreciating the beautiful clothes you hang in your wardrobe, about buying the number of clothes you can wear, about how much impacts we can leave on others through the very small decision we make. More importantly, it's about how our ignorance can kill anyone, including ourselves. It's about how the greedy uses our ignorance and other countries' misfortunes, to take unethical and irresponsible advantage of others. It's a responsibility and an awareness. It's time to be aware of how the idea of fast fashion has ruined the environment, the society, and even the fashion industry itself. 52 seasons a year-- almost a new season each week, can you imagine that? I'm so inspired by Raf Simon's recent interview with Business of Fashion, one of the many quotes that will leave you start thinking about fashion is:
"Everything is so easily accessible, and because of that you don’t make a lot of effort anymore. When we were young, you had to make up your mind to investigate something — because it took time. You really had to search and dig deep. Now if something interests you, one second later, you can have it. And also one second later you also drop it."
Having so many clothes left unworn in your fitting room has nothing to be proud of, living a wasteful life is not glamorous but ignorance, buying more possessions do not solve the problems in your life. To feed our ignorance and egoism, who, what, and how much more do we have to sacrifice? While you might feel happy and proud of your wardrobe that's filled with so many clothes, perhaps you have to see the other glamour side of your wardrobe-- which were sewn by tears, sweat, and dreams, with their hands, for us.
Perhaps you decide, what you can do, or do nothing at all.
Note: This post is just a summary, if you're interested in knowing more, I'm sure those two documentaries I shared above will help. Not forget to mention "The True Cost" by Andrew Morgan too, but it doesn't have a Youtube version, I watched it on iTunes. These 3 are really informative, interesting and heartbreaking documentaries to watch.
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