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Water covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface, the vast oceans holding about 96.5% of all Earth's water.¹ Since the fashion economy's introduction to synthetic dyes, plastics, and developed chemical use in the early-to-mid twentieth century, the neglectful negative environmental impact has reached alarming figures.

As Earth's largest ecosystem that supplies the majority of food, water, and power, maintaining its quality and integrity is vital to humanity's future.

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The Sustainable Development Goals, instituted by the United Nations, are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all". They were set up in 2015 and are intended to be achieved by 2030.

Goal 14, Life Below Water, describes the mission to "Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development." This goal is supported and enforced through 10 internationally recognised targets.

Healthy oceans and seas are essential to our existence.They cover 70 percent of our planet and we rely on them for food, energy and water. Yet, we have managed to do tremendous damage to these precious resources. We must protect them by eliminating pollution and overfishing and immediately start to responsibly manage and protect all marine life around the world.²

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One of the first internationally recognised cases of the potential of water pollution originated in the Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, Ohio in the 1930s. As Cleveland was becoming an industrial hub of the mid-west United States following the industrial revolution, the local river became heavily polluted due to chemical and industrial waste and runoff. Over the next few decades, the river was recorded to have been set ablaze at least 14 times.³ Public realisation and outrage in the late 60s resulted in the creation of the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Where all fabrics were made from natural materials, most commonly plants, polyester was born of scientific research. Conceptualised, invented, but then neglected in the early twentieth century, the recipe was adopted by British scientists in the mid century who further executed its production and established the market introduction.

The public attention was grabbed through the claim that "it could be worn for 68 days straight without ironing or care and still look fresh.⁵" The new concept of convenience and bargains in a time where societies with new rules were shaping was taking hold. "This appealed to women, who were the primary homemakers, and the fabric’s popularity soared. It continued to grow in popularity up until the 1960s, when it had a brief decline due to polyester products feeling notoriously uncomfortable and cheap. This was rectified by companies such as Calvin Klein in the 1980s.⁵"

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Of the fashion industry's contribution to water pollution, it's biggest contributors are synthetic dyes and micro-plastics. For hundreds - if not thousands - of years prior to its creation, all textiles were dyed with naturally sourced ingredients. Plethoras of flora, plantation, grains, foods, insects, and more were all used in the colour pigmentation of these natural dyes. Although at times scarce to forage for, and took a considerable amount of time to manufacture, the results were effective, well made, and lasted for many years.

In the mid nineteenth century a crude coal-tar-based "mauve" synthetic dye was accidentally developed when trying to make a quinine medication. This is accredited as the introduction to synthetic dye.⁴

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Nowadays, nearly all textiles are predominantly coloured through synthetic dyes. Processes involving any and all of these synthetic dyes requires a significant amount of water usage (6-9 trillion litres of water per year)⁷, most of which eventually becomes contaminant with harmful chemicals, becoming unusable. It is believed that 17-20% of the total industrial water pollution is generated by textile dyeing.⁷ This excessive dumping of harmful water makes the local waterways of the industrial regions undrinkable; little access to clean drinking water for masses of the population.

The main driving factor behind these practices is Western brands demanding more products for less cost. This means that corners are being cut – in this case, the management of waste and the abandonment of best practice.⁷

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A large contributor to ocean pollution is the presence of Micro-plastics, "and over a third of all microplastics released into the world's oceans yearly are from synthetic textiles. Between half million and a million tons of plastic microfibres are discharged into wastewater each year from the washing of synthetic clothes. Polyester sheds on average six times more micro-plastic fibres than nylon.⁶"

This not only has negative effects on the water itself, but the marine life that live within it. "About 90% of seabirds are estimated to have plastic in their stomach, and more than 100,000 marine mammals are killed by plastic debris each year. Microfibres released from your clothing and other micro-plastics are sometimes mistaken for food by fish and other marine animals. This not only harms the animal that ingests it, the material passes up the food chain into larger animals and humans.⁸"

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Slow fashion is predictably the opposite of fast fashion.
Where fast fashion glorifies the capitalist and consumerist ideals of supply-and-demand, mass production, convenience, and inexpensiveness, Slow fashion heavily considers the awareness of the processes and resources required to make the garment. "Slow fashion advocates for buying better-quality garments that will last longer, and values fair treatment of people, animals, and the use of the planets recourses.⁹"

Listed by JustOneOcean.org, some characteristics of a slow fashion brand include:

Making from high quality, sustainable materials like linen,

Garments make more timeless than trendy,

Often sold in smaller (local) stores rather than huge chain enterprise.

Few, specific styles per collection, which are released twice or maximum three times per year, or a permanent seasonless collection

Often made-to-order to reduce unnecessary production.

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Relative to considering the effects on the ocean and waterways, Slow Fashion finds comfort in the realisation that given the powers that be and the realism of the situations, the world won't cease all practises, but they can be controlled through responsible production and consumption therefore buying us time to reflect further and develop more solutions.

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While reverting back to only using natural dyes would be an arguably effective solution, The main downside is that they only work on natural fibres. Which means asking a population of over eight billion people to - over time - surrender the use of elastics and synthetics. A fun hypothetical but grossly unrealistic.

Growing conditions, the health of the plants, the mineral content of the water, and many other variable factors can affect the colour outcomes. Additionally, colour-fastness with some natural dyes can be tricky, when compared with their synthetic dye counterparts. These inconsistencies would not bode well with our fast fashion culture. ⁷

Natural dyeing on a large scale would require huge amounts of farm land and water to grow and cultivate. This option would be taking land and water away from food agriculture. Also, many of these plants and insects are only found in certain regions of the world. The transportation of the raw materials would leave a very large carbon footprint. 7

This presents the concept of dying fabric as a double edged sword. Synthetic dyes not only use a lot of water but contaminant said water with harmful chemicals making it unusable. Natural dyes on large scales also use a considerable amount of water and would affect the environment just as negatively. The only true solution would be the population being content with a colourless world.

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Unreferenced images are supplied through the Padlet AI image creator.

1. https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/how-much-water-there-earth#:~:text=About%2071%20percent%20of%20the,percent%20of%20all%20Earth's%20water.

2. https://www.globalgoals.org/goals/14-life-below-water/

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River

4. https://www.fsw.cc/synthetic-dyes-history/

5. https://www.lawrencehuntfashion.com/blogs/news/history-of-polyester-fabrics

6. https://www.commonobjective.co/article/microfibres-what-to-know-and-do-beatplasticpollution#:~:text=The%20fashion%20industry%20is%20a,oceans%20are%20from%20synthetic%20textiles.

7. https://borrowingcolor.com/2021/04/19/why-synthetic-dyes-cause-water-pollution-and-the-types-of-solutions-we-need-to-find/#:~:text=%E2%81%B4%20Synthetic%20dyes%20are%20one%20of%20the%20major%20causes%20of%20water%20pollution.&text=Excessive%20Water%20Waste%3A%206%2D9,form)%20by%20the%20dye%20industry.

8. https://www.fashionandthefree.com/fashion-impact-oceans

9. https://justoneocean.org/portfolio/the-fashion-industrys-impact-on-the-ocean

10. https://www.ejisinc.com/blogs/news/antimicrobial-fabrics

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Actively choosing a wardrobe of more natural fibres decreases the individual carbon footprint. Some natural textiles are known to be antimicrobial.

Antimicrobial fabric is a textile that is either naturally resistant to microbe or has been treated in such a way as to resist microbes. Antimicrobial textiles offers protection against bacteria, mold, mildew, and other microbes (both hazardous and inert). Some naturally antimicrobial fabrics include linen, merino wool, and hemp. ¹⁰

When a microorganism, such as bacteria, comes into contact with an antimicrobial fabric, it breaks down in several ways, as listed by ejisinc.com:

The antimicrobial agent impedes the microbe’s genetics and its ability to reproduce.

It increases oxygen levels, which causes internal damage to the microbe.

It damages the microbe’s membrane, which adversely affects its supply of nutrients.

It can assault the microbe’s proteins, which hinders its essential functions.

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A stronger use of natural fibres with the antimicrobial trait can - with assistance from personal active decision making - mean garments are washed less frequently when treated well. Often the most environmentally hazardous part of a garment's life cycle is the constant washing; how much water is used per wash and how many micro fibres and micro synthetics are released into the global plumbing, waterways, and then oceans.

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While there are many factors and harmful practise we don't yet have an answer or finite solution for, we can at least identify what it is that needs changing and help spread awareness in the hope that it reaches and alarms the right people with enough drive and power to make that change.

One of the ways that we, as consumers, can make a difference is by supporting these small studios and dyers in their art forms rather than the big corporations who are the driving forces behind the devastating effects of fast fashion. ⁷