---
title: "Fast fashion report cards show what’s really in your clothes"
description: "Consumers’ drive for quantity over quality is transforming the world’s textile industry, sparking an almost doubling in global fibre production over the past two decades."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Business Maverick"
author: "Bloomberg"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/bloomberg/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-07-21-fast-fashion-report-cards-show-whats-really-in-your-clothes/"
published: "2023-07-21T06:05:34"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 701
---

# Fast fashion report cards show what’s really in your clothes

> Consumers’ drive for quantity over quality is transforming the world’s textile industry, sparking an almost doubling in global fibre production over the past two decades.

By Bloomberg · Published 21 July 2023, 08:05 SAST

## Key points
- Despite the promise of sustainability from fast fashion brands, polyester and cotton remain the fabrics of choice for the industry, both of which come with their own environmental issues.
- Synthetics, in particular polyester, have allowed fast fashion to become the most widely used fabric in the world.
- Polyester is a plastic-based fabric that can take up to 200 years to decompose.
- Cotton is a natural fabric but requires intensive inputs and has environmental risks associated with it.
- Brands are trying to be more eco-conscious by using recycled materials and sustainable sources.

## Content

Underpinning the explosive growth is synthetics — in particular polyester. Its cheapness, allowing dresses and T-shirts to be sold for as little as a few dollars, has helped make it the most widely used fabric in the world.

But while polyester is durable, resistant to stains and wrinkles and lightweight, it’s also a kind of plastic (derived from a chemical reaction involving petroleum, air and water) and can take upwards of [200 years](https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4097&context=sspapers&httpsredir=1&referer=) to decompose. That’s made it a lightning rod for criticism of the excesses of the fashion industry, which produces [up to 10%](https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/unbutton-fashion) of the world’s carbon emissions and is the second-largest consumer of [water](https://earth.org/fast-fashions-detrimental-effect-on-the-environment/).

Read more: [How Fast, Cheap Fashion Is Polluting the Planet](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-09/fast-fashion-s-environmental-impact-in-2023-explained)

A look at recent public disclosures from top fast fashion brands Shein, H&M and Inditex SA, owner of Zara, shows that Shein, the Singapore-headquartered giant that makes most of its garments at factories in China, is by far the biggest user of polyester.

The fabric makes up 64% of its mix versus 27% at Inditex and 21% at H&M.

Shein also only [uses less than 1%](https://sheingroup.com/esg-reports/) of recycled polyester, although it aims to transition at least 31% of its polyester-based products to recycled materials by 2030.

Inditex has a target of using 100% recycled or sustainable polyester by 2025 even though [only about](https://static.inditex.com/annual_report_2022/pdf/Inditex-group-annual-report-2022.pdf) one-third of its polyester during its latest 2022 winter season was recycled. About three-quarters of the polyester H&M used last year was recycled and it’s working toward hitting a target of 100% in 2025.

Polyester has also become the fabric of choice for the fashion industry more broadly.

In 2021, the fibre had a 54% market share of total global production and just 9 million tons of recycled polyester were made — another sign of the difficulties in transitioning toward more sustainable materials.

Laundering polyester and other synthetic textiles also accounts for the release of about 35% of microplastics that end up in the world’s oceans, according to one [estimate](https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2017-002-En.pdf). And despite industry vows to ramp up recycling, consumers still throw away tens of millions of garments that end up in landfill, clogging the coast of Ghana or [piling up](https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/11/8/chiles-desert-dumping-ground-for-fast-fashion-leftovers) in Chile’s Atacama desert.

Beyond polyester, cotton is another commonly used material that draws scrutiny.

While it’s a natural fabric, meaning it can [biodegrade](https://cottonworks.com/en/topics/sustainability/cotton-sustainability/biodegradability-of-cotton/) in a matter of months, it involves intensive inputs to grow, process and turn into clothing. Farmers apply pesticides for a conventional crop, which comes with the risk of chemical drift and runoff that can [contaminate](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8276731/) rivers or soil. It also requires a lot of water — about 2,700 liters, on average, for one T-shirt.

Last year, 92% of Inditex’s cotton was from what it calls preferred sources — organic and from suppliers transitioning toward organic farming, recycled material and “[Better Cotton](https://bettercotton.org/who-we-are/)”, crops certified by the world’s largest cotton sustainability programme. The company estimates it’ll hit 100% this year. H&M says it sources 100% of its cotton from recycled, organic and other more sustainable sources including Better Cotton.

Shein only uses 10% cotton but has found itself in the spotlight due to concerns about its sourcing practices.

A November 2022 Bloomberg News report used [laboratory testing](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-11-21/shein-s-cotton-clothes-tied-to-xinjiang-china-region-accused-of-forced-labor) to determine that garments ordered from Shein were made of cotton from Xinjiang, a region in China’s northwest that’s been accused of human rights violations against its Uyghur population.

Shein says it’s since established robust traceability of its cotton supply chain, including a proprietary system that integrates documentation, that is [committed](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-22/shein-eyes-overseas-expansion-to-shift-supply-chain-beyond-china) to respecting human rights and that has zero tolerance to forced labour.

Read more: [Influencer Backlash Is the Latest Threat to Shein’s IPO Plans](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-12/shein-influencer-trip-is-the-latest-threat-to-its-ipo-plans)

Although according to [Roosmarie Ruigrok](https://nl.linkedin.com/in/roosmarieruigrok), a sustainable fashion consultant and founder of supply chain information platform Clean&Unique, clothing labels are “hardly read by consumers”, brands are trying to be more eco-conscious.

H&M has said that since 2020, all of its cotton comes from “[more sustainable sources](https://hmgroup.com/sustainability/circularity-and-climate/materials/#:~:text=Our%20materials%20goals,30%25%20recycled%20materials%20by%202025.)” while Shein last year announced a [$15-million investment](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-05/shein-to-spend-15-million-on-factories-after-labor-abuse-claims) to upgrade its supply chains.

Inditex, meanwhile, has [pledged](https://www.inditex.com/itxcomweb/en/sustainability) to use 100% organic or sustainable cotton in its clothes before the year end, along with only man-made cellulosic preferent fibres — a plant-based fibre. **DM**