I feel it is most appropriate to talk about some of the environmental issues associated with the fashion industry. When thinking about the fashion industry, it is not common for people to think palm oil has anything to do with it. Most people do not even know what palm oil is. However, when analyzing climate change, it’s important to acknowledge how this industry has a major effect on our environment.
To begin, palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp of the fruit of the oil palms, primarily the African oil palm. This oil is used to create palm-oil based biofuels to produce most of our clothing. The problelm with this, is that because of our desire for fash fashion, the usage of palm oil is rising. This is resulting in a lot of damage for the environment, the animals and people. The clothing quality that is being produced is decreasing in large numbers as people are only keeping clothing for short periods of time. This is causing a shift from good quality, long lasting clothing to fast fashion and more production.
One societal goal that we need to adopt is sustainability. I know it can be easy to overlook this topic because large corporations do not want to lose profit but this issue is massive and should be covered way more in the press. Each and every day huge tracts of rainforest in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa are being bulldozed or torched to make room for more plantations, releasing vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. The plant is extracted and can be found in the clothing we are wearing right now. Common fabrics include viscose, rayon, modal and lyocell. If you check the tags on your clothing, you may see one of these fabrics listed.
The forest campaign group Canopy revealed that dissolving-pulp (the base material for rayon/viscose) wastes approximately 70% of the tree and involves a chemically intensive manufacturing process. This deforestation is hurting animals, espeically the endangered species, Orangutans out of there homes. Many indigenous people are forced to leave their land and the air we all breath is getting worse every year. In fact, approximately 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide – one-third of the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels – is absorbed by forests every year.
This topic deserves just as much attention as the other climate change issues. Since the press does not cover this topic enough, I feel it is appropiate to share this information. There needs to be more sustainable, durable and good quality fashion to reduce this industry's footprint on the enviroment. Although there is a slight shift of more sustainble fashion companies emerging, it is important to be aware when purchasing fast fashion and the harmful fabrics in them.
I did not realize that palm oil was used within the fashion industry. I know it to be a main ingredient in our beauty and food products, especially amongst the larger companies who have monopolized their industries. I however was never informed about its presence within our daily garments. Such issues of products like palm oil that are further instigating climate change can only be controlled with strict governmental laws. I keep asking myself how severely dismantled our Earth needs to be in order for these laws to be officially put into place...