After class on Wednesday I went on Netflix and finished watching The True Cost and cried. We get so caught up in consumption and buying the next new thing, we rarely pause to think of the impact on the environment. Our mind has been wired to accept that a shirt should just cost $5 and that’s what we are only willing to pay for.
Something that the organic cotton farmer, who lost her husband to brain cancer, said really resonated with me. We care so much about the health food industry and what the chemicals we consume can do to our body, but we don’t think twice about what the chemicals are doing to our largest organs – our skin! I have always seen myself as a more conscious shopper, looking at the martial of the clothes I buy, however, this just gives me a whole new perspective on things.
Last summer I was interning at an American factory in one of the more industry heavy cities in China. For about 2-3 weeks I did not see the sun at all. The sky was clouded and smoggy, you can almost feel the pressure of the particles on your body.
On one of my rotations in the warehouse, I met a co-worker who used to work in a factory that produced IPhones. Underage workers were common, he said, in fact, there was a girl who died on the shift because she was too sick and the manager didn’t give her a break.
I look down at my new IPhone and all the clothes I don’t need in my closest and I am ashamed.
A cute little take on the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for Clothes 🙂
I am really fond of documentaries, but I had never seen one about the textile industry before. As soon as I got home after class on Wednesday, I finished watching the documentary too. I now realize how little I knew about the impact the fashion industry has both on people and on the planet.
In Business Ethics Leadership, a course I am now taking, we discussed about everyone taking part in the iPhone’s supply chain and the ethics involved in the manufacture process. But I never thought about the people making clothes and the industry as a whole.
After watching the documentary, it seems unbelievable that clothes can be that cheap taking into account how many people are involved in its manufacture. Clothes are getting cheaper while the environmental and human costs get bigger. The next time I look at a price tag I would ask myself if paying that little for clothes is really ethical and who is really paying for them.
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