Environmental concerns were put on the scale against economic benefits and individual expression as students from Chesterton and Valparaiso high schools weighed the merits of fast fashion.
Inexpensive clothing produced rapidly in response to the latest fashion trends is a relevant topic for teens, VHS senior Lottie Wells said.
Another topic considered was construction of nuclear power plants to fuel data centers’ high demand for energy, but the textile industry seemed more fashionable. “It was just more interesting,” she said.
Wells and VHS sophomore Jorge Ramirez argued on behalf of the fast fashion segment of the apparel industry while CHS senior Patrick Hansen and junior Isabel Durkin took the opposing side.
The debate was sponsored by the Valparaiso Chain of Lakes Watershed Group, which pushes for environmental causes including, but not limited to, improving water quality.
During the debate, Durkin said the fast fashion industry produces 100 billion garments a year, of which 87% end up in a landfill or incinerated.
The world’s population is about 8.2 billion.
“Fast fashion is one of the most environmentally destructive industries in the world. According to the United Nations Environment Program, fast fashion is the second biggest consumer of water globally and is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions,” Durkin said.
“It takes 10,000 liters to make one kilogram of cotton,” she said. “This means that just one pair of jeans uses the same amount of water as 20,000 water bottles.”
Polyester, a popular fabric, requires 342 billion barrels of oil every year, Durkin said, and dyes pollute streams, oceans and groundwater.
Ramirez, however, noted the benefits for developing nations where fast fashion apparel is produced. “It lifts people out of poverty” by hiring unskilled labor, he said.
Demand for fast fashion can also lead to infrastructure improvement in developing countries, according to the Cato Institute, he noted.
Self-expression is another benefit of fast fashion, Ramirez said. “Individuality is so important for self-representation.”
“Clothes can also aid our sense of belonging, signifying what social stratus you belong to,” he added. “It helps express me as a person.”
“It is because of these clothes that are affordable, readily available and in demand that everyone should have the same rights for me to represent who I am as a person. Fast fashion is what makes this possible,” Ramirez said.
“The negative world is non-individualistic and gray,” Wells said. “In a world without fast fashion, you see all the same environmental harms, just without individualism.”
Hansen argued that making even a little progress on environmental improvements by addressing the fast fashion industry would set an example for other industries and lead to further progress.
Production overseas also harms workers in the United States, he said, by limiting employment here.
“The fast fashion industry is notorious for child labor and unsafe working conditions,” he said. Prioritizing economic gains puts children in unsafe conditions, he said.
“Our self-expression is not more important than the lives of millions of people,” Durkin said.
Overconsumption is a problem, Ramirez acknowledged, but that’s on consumers, not producers, he said. “We don’t know what to do with these products” when they’re no longer trendy.
Valparaiso Chain of Lakes Watershed Group board President Walt Breitinger acted as emcee.
“Even at our local level, if you go to board meetings on a regular basis, there are a lot of people attacking each other, interrupting each other and oftentimes insulting one another,” Breitinger said after the debate.
“I’m just so impressed,” he said, by the student debaters. “These are the adults in the room.”
Valparaiso University chemistry Professor Julie Peller said the fast fashion industry’s impact on the environment is pertinent because of the synthetic fabrics involved. Her research includes microplastics in water in the region.”
“I think most people don’t recognize how awful the issue is,” she said.
“Companies that learn how to manufacture something cheaply, quickly, and it’s pretty darn disposable, too, so we don’t use a whole lot and we get rid of it,” Peller said, so resources are used up quickly but the environmental effects last far longer.
“In the case of plastic, we just don’t have an answer for what to do with all this waste,” she said.
‘Look on the sides of our roads. This is a sign of the times, all this plastic waste. We don’t have an answer for it,” Peller said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
