The Environmental Impact of the Textile Industry

As one of the largest industries in the world, the textile industry has its contributions towards the degradation of the environment. We need clothing as much as the environment. We can’t live with glorifying one while sacrificing the other. So what do we do? We know we are harming the environment, but do we know to what extent is the cloth that you’re wearing right now a part of the problem? If so, we have been using clothing since a long time, imagine the amount of harm we are causing to our Mother Earth. 

Concluding that there is a need for clothing, to meet with the growth in the demand, us humans have made huge moves with this industry. We have made up ways to meet the demand faster and have not paid attention to the consequences. Every process of producing a fabric has a hand in harming nature. There are many types of fabrics but the most widely used and known fabric is cotton. Now you would think that cotton is something that comes from a plant, how is that harmful right? Well let me tell you that among other alternatives too, about 40% of the clothes are made out of cotton. The production has to be in large amounts and the crop cannot die which leads to measures we take that cause the most harm to nature. Us humans, over the years, have used pesticides and fertilisers to maintain a good condition for cotton to grow with being damaged. We have treated the soil and water with chemicals that have polluted it over time. 

That’s just a part of it. Humans have gone to the extent of extracting artificial fabrics from the pulp of wood and when needed more, would go on to cut down a lot of forests. Trees are a major part of keeping the balance in the environment. It is what makes this planet habitable. Some fabrics such as synthetic fibre contributes to the increase in green house gasses. 

Another part of the process is giving colour to these fabrics we have made. This involves things such as bleaching, dyeing, etc, which is again done using a lot of water. As technology has helped this industry advance, the colours we use to dye our fabrics have been added with a lot of chemicals to make sure that the industry is keeping up with the demand. These new dyes have salts that are produced while being used and they do not decompose. They end up polluting the water. In short, we are taking a resource (water) which is scarce and polluting it while ignoring the fact that water is also a factor to many other things outside the textile industry, it is a home for aquatic life. Imagine the air becoming poisonous and not having enough oxygen to breathe, how would you feel if you find out that the air is toxic because of some other species’ selfish deeds? 

As people who have to live on this planet, we need to take some time and think about the amount of harm our clothing causes. The industry has been alive for centuries without a break in this cycle of pollution. The people who have realised the hazard are trying to improve and find friendlier alternatives, are you?