Made Me Think...

Issues dealing with harmful chemicals, issues dealing with harmful treatment to animals and factory workers, issues dealing with recycling… I could go on and on! It seems like there are always issues dealing with something in our industry, but after reading this weeks assignments I’ve found out that these issues we keep talking about need to be taken seriously.

Fashioning Sustainability list all types of issues related to the clothing industry, and how they are affecting our lives everyday. Issues like harmful chemicals used in materials to make clothing, animal welfare and the treatment of animals used for clothing, disposal of non-renewable products like polyester, toxic chemicals used in factories and the harm it causes workers, and the overall treatment of such workers.

Last weeks reading, Economic Millennium Assessment, and this weeks reading, Fashioning Sustainability, both talk about ways we can improve issues with our environment, and in doing so we are likely to have better outcomes in dealing with trade, production, exchange, and disposal. 

I agree that these implementations would bring change to the clothing industry itself. Obviously, treating animal with respect isn’t going to hurt our industry, and giving workers, that make our clothing, the same respect isn’t going to decrease production or make companies look bad. It explains that using less toxic chemicals in our clothing would reduce the harmful effects it has on our environment and reduce the cost altogether. What harm could implementing the right thing do to our industry as a whole? In my opinion, nothing.

These thing are not going to change overnight, but as companies see that making organic clothing by reducing or all together eliminating toxic chemicals IS the right thing to do maybe in the future we will see a dramatic change in the way we make our clothing and therefor see a change in our everyday lives.

As for the article, Pricing Environmental Impacts, A Tail of Two Shirts, it also explains how harmful chemicals are to our environment and how, after research and extensive data collecting, the cost of an organic cotton t-shirt is considerably lower than the cost of a conventional cotton t-shirt. Because of the removal of toxic chemicals, organic cotton t-shirts are also better for our environment. I think the cost of growing, ginning, processing, distribution, and transportation along with consumer care are the costs that truly go into a simple t-shirt. Something as simple is washing your t-shirt less and hanging it to dry could ultimately reduce your carbon footprint, and we would never have realized the impact one t-shirt could make without the research to show it.

New Issues mean New Issues

Listening to the news about how people and our actions are harming the environment more and more each day maybe not be as bad as we think.

An article, titled Easter Island, described to us how a community of people started living together on an island off the coast of Chile. Settlements were formed across the island and became focused on rituals and ceremonial activities, rather than learning how to feed and live off the land. Instead of realizing the earth would not continuously produce for them, they used what was there and foolishly became wrapped up in their monuments. According to the article, they would cut down numerous amounts of trees that helped transport these monuments without planting more. They started out in small numbers but soon grew, adding to the depleting resources available. Were these settlers truly neglecting their land? It was clearly stated that an archeologist researched and conclude that these selfish settlers grew a community to the most advanced community known in this region and then destroyed it with careless mistakes.

In the assigned reading, Ecosystems and Human Well-Being, the focus was on how much we are using our natural resources, like wood, food and fiber, and not realizing how much each little thing we do is hurting us in the long run. It seemed to me that this article states we think we need this much when really we only need this much; and that as we grow as a population our resources are dimensioning at scary rates. We use much paper, too much food, and too much waste, but are we not doing anything about it or replenishing these resources- probably not as much as we should.

I don’t think these issues are new. I think things like this have been going on for thousands and thousands of years, but I don’t think we should leave it alone. I think, as beings on this planet it is our job to take care of it.

As stated in the article, EPA policy based ‘junk science’, the EPA are not following their own rules and going off what someone said about the greenhouse gas emissions. About how they are hurting the environment when in fact the EPA didn’t do the tests and research they are, by their own rules, are supposed to do.

These issues I think are new. Since when is it ok to skate over the truth about environmental issues? But could we be also be doing to our land, our world what Easter Island did to theirs? Are we being feed information that is a little on the extreme side? Maybe we are, but maybe for the sake of people noticing and actually wanting to do something about it.  This, however, doesn’t make it right.