6+ Compelling Reasons Not to Shop at Department Stores

Every 1/5th of UK citizens feel guilty when buying a new item, and 64% of respondents said they were ready to buy used clothes. Second-hand clothing sales are booming, and not just in the land of the queen, but all over the world. This is influenced by the department store market, known as “fast fashion”, products from Zara, C&A, Renner and other mass market stores. They’re cheap, beautiful, and designed for just one season — but are these things really as good as they convince us?

we, from awesome.club, we found good reasons to stop shopping at department stores, and we will explain everything in this post. And, at the end, a bonus to teach you how to make fashion greener and help our Planet.

In 2016, the footwear and clothing industries produced 8% of the total amount of harmful emissions into the atmosphere. A year earlier, the figure was 1.2 billion tons of pollutants. In 2015, international flights and maritime transport combined released fewer harmful substances into the atmosphere.

Synthetic fabrics contain tiny plastic fibers that easily pass through washing machine filters and end up in treatment facilities. About 1 million microparticles are released from washing at 30-40°C a piece of approximately 1.36 kg of polyester, and 700,000 microparticle fibers are released in a piece of the same weight of acrylic. These particles are toxic and penetrate the body of marine animals that are part of our daily diet.

Between 17-20% of our planet’s contaminated water is due to the fabric dyeing process. The dyes used in this activity contain sulfur, heavy metal compounds, formaldehyde and so on. When interacting with products used in laundry, they form by-products and cause allergies. Many fabrics in these stores are not biodegradable: they will take between 20 and 200 years to decompose.

Clothes made from all-natural fabrics are harder to find: for example, products made from organic cotton make up just 1% of the 22.7-ton production of clothing manufacturing. Growing cotton requires a very large amount of water: 2700 liters per shirt. The use of fertilizers on plantations is at least 1 kg of pesticides per 1 hectare of land. By the way, cotton absorbs more pesticides than other agricultural crops — 16% of the total.

Punjab is India’s biggest pesticide consumer, which affects the region’s environmental situation. The soil, rivers and atmosphere are so polluted as to harm health. For example, children living in this region have serious physical and mental illnesses. There is a high incidence of cancer. You can follow the air quality in the region online: at the time of writing this article, it was classified as “harmful”, that is, its negative impact on health can be felt by everyone in the region.

Department store brands are moving their factories to poor countries where working conditions are critical and cheap. In 2013, the Rana Plaza building collapsed in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, in the building were located clothing factories for brands such as Benetton, Primark and H&M: more than 1,000 dead, around 2,500 injured. The day before the tragedy, workers drew the attention of management to the cracks in the building, but were forced to work, under threat of non-payment of wages.

In 2015, Andrew Morgan produced a documentary The True Cost 🇧🇷the true cost, in free translation). The footage revealed that, in the early 2000s, a young worker was paid 10 dollars a month and that union members were physically attacked by their superiors and co-workers. In 2018, the minimum wage in Bangladesh reached the mark of US$97.2 per month. Meanwhile, the minimum subsistence for a family of 2 adults and 2 children was 214 dollars.

Of course it depends on the context, and also, it is much better to donate than to throw it away, but this attitude can lead to stagnation and regression in the economies of developing countries. This is what happened in Haiti: thousands of used clothes were sent from the United States, and the local population bought them because of the low cost.

In just a few years, the clothing industry and small businesses have all but disappeared: factories no longer have to sew their own clothes and sell them. Seamstress work was no longer enough to support a family, and the island’s economy now depends on the United States.

Everyone can do their part by following one or several simple steps. Letting go of impulsive shopping and the habit of changing your wardrobe every season is a good start. Another option is to periodically go to thrift stores or give preference to items made from organic raw materials.

Another step is to buy more expensive and better quality clothes, but much less often. This kills 2 birds with one stone: we pollute the environment less and make a good investment in the wardrobe. Watch the video, it will show you some more cool ideas on how we can help our Planet and it will explain the path that an ordinary t-shirt goes to our closets.

Were you already aware of all the evils of department stores? Or do you have any other cool tips for conscious clothing consumption? Tell us in the comments section.