Ethics: Environmental And Ethical Dilemma Of Blue Jeans

The primary purpose of this essay uses persuasive writing to get her point across. Informing the reader about the eco dangers of buying outsourced clothing material. Most people often want the cheaper alternative without going to the flea market or charity clothing banks. But all the clothes get worn down, shrink, fade or just deteriorate in the end because the fabric is unsustainable. Resulting in the t-shirts and jeans to be tossed away and put into a landfill. Where they have been found to transmite “more than three million tons of carbon dioxide emissions”. (Siegle, 7)

The American Eagle Outfitters is known as an American clothing and accessories retailer created by the bothers Jerry and Mark Silverman. This retail apparel, manufactures and markets a wide variety of clothes, intimates, and accessories that permits the company to be recognized as a diversified brand interested in expanding its target market. The heart of the company is recognized for the innovative fabrication of its jeans. With the recent creation of the #ICAN, the brand is letting its customers know how important is to know for the firm what the client do and feel when using its products, in this case how comfortable they feel when wearing AEO’s jeans. The company cares about the design of its jeans for both women and men while offering

With other companies starting to encroach upon the Jeans market share, Levi’s decided to introduce a new product. With the goal to gain profits, Levi’s pursued diversification with the new product. This product was formal clothing for men.

Robert Swan once said “the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” Two companies that understand this concept are Patagonia and Nike. How they address these issues regarding sustainable business practice vary, however. Both have made it their mission to deliver excellence and make the best quality products within their industries, Patagonia focussing more on outdoor active wear, while Nike is more sports oriented. Part of this process has been developing products from sustainable sources. Patagonia, for example, actively took a stand against chemical intensive cotton in 1994, and has since switched to less harmful means of organic cotton within all their cotton-based products. They are even going the extra

How fast fashion is affecting the environment is a very serious topic since this type of consumerism in the United States is heavy on supply and demand, and because of that shoppers want it all and want it now which is basically fast fashions motto. The way to make these pieces of clothing heavily rely on cheap materials that can be made quickly, so that is polyester and cotton being made in big factories that emit out toxins into our earth. Cotton being one of the most used fabrics takes a lot to be made into a single garment. Uzbekistan which is the 6th biggest producer of cotton had faced many conflicts during production since cotton uses so much water to be made it has dried up the 4th largest lake the Aral Sea because of how much we need to produce cotton fashion. (Prospectjournalucsd) Buying these cheap garments that become unwearable after 5 times (Forbes) of wearing it usually gets thrown out after and producing more waste that gets put into our waterways since theses garments shed easy and through washing them can “find their way into oceans and on the shores everywhere.” (Sweeny) So with the help of shoppers, being able to cut down on the purchase of fast fashion can help aid in keeping the ecosystem in order.

In this article, Barenblat outlines some of the key reasons as to why fast fashion is detrimental for women and the environment. The author supports her claim by suggesting fast fashion is expensive for the planet, encourages young women in poverty to work in sweatshops, and leads to million tons of landfill each year. This information in the article is useful because it provides relevant statistics on the damages caused by the clothing industry.

In the book, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, Elizabeth Cline, a journalist and the author, writes about the lack of ability of disposal we currently possess for the massive amounts of textile waste. She wrote, “The rate of disposal is not keeping up with the availability of places to put everything that we're getting rid of and that's the problem." Millions of tons of textile waste are generated globally per year. There are many efforts to cut down the amount of waste by recycling, shredding, and exporting to developing nations. According to the United Nations, The US is the leading exporter of second-hand clothes. Very poor nations like India benefit greatly from imported second-hand clothing. These methods to cut back on textile waste are proven to work, but they don’t solve the problem, they just lessen it. Part of the problem with fast fashion and textile waste is that many of the clothes being mass produced are made out of cheap petroleum-based fibers. H&M received a lot of backlash for this, spurring them to release a more eco-friendly line of clothing, using organic cotton.

There will always be that one or two patrons that are looking to save the environment and if the company can look to incorporate environmentally friendly designer clothing and accessories into the business, the business will be leading the future in clothing retail sales. For example, designer blue jeans become a designer purse; a designer silk shirt becomes a new designer pajama top. Reusing material is not a new idea however, creating new items from high-end designer clothing to create environmentally friendlier clothing or recycled designer clothing from the designer is, and if it is made exclusively for Christina’s Unique Clothing Store the company’s future is secured.

Factors such as economics, global, politics, socio-cultural, technology, and demographics may affect the performance of the company (Anderson, 2012).According to Patagonia, their love for the environment runs deep. They actively donate at least 1% of their sales to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups all over the world who work to help reverse the tide (Patagonia, n.d.). Additionally, by being in touch with their core values for over 40 years, they understand that some of their business activities such as lighting the stores to the dying of their products increase pollution. As a result, Patagonia works steadily to reduce those harms, by using recycled polyester and only organic rather than pesticide infected cotton (Patagonia, n.d). Considering this, the connection is created between the company and the external environment factors. These factors trickle down to the consumer who buys the product. The socio-cultural component is expressed throughout Patagonia. The socio-cultural component is concerned with societal and cultural factors such as values, attitudes, trends, traditions, lifestyles, beliefs, tastes, and patterns of behavior (Anderson, n.d). By Patagonia strategically managing all the aspects of creating an excellent corporation, it has always been their social responsibility to not only impact the consumers but corporations around them as well. Their mission will always be to change the relationship between the consumer and the products sold to them by creating clothing items that can withstand wear and tear for

Ultimately, my goal is to accomplish an innovative way to recycle my former clothing, become more environmentally friendly, and save money. My aim is to have a complete product by the end of the year. I plan to conduct the project at the comfort of my home. I wish to reduce my ecological footprint because it is vital that humans should be as sustainable as possible to keep the world running. I perceive this as a wise investment; this way I can invest by not consistently buying from expensive stores or brands that approve immoral practices, in example, child labor. I hope that I gain a greater appreciation for the world and the privileges it has given me.

The fact that it is possible to treat the clothes for them to simply not be able to receive dirt is eco friendly on long term because that means we wouldn’t need to wash the clothes as much but then those same clothes cannot be recycled and that is not eco friendly––Is it better to keep clothes as they are and waste more energy or to treat them but not recycle them after use? It is a dilemma.

The fact that there is so much competition in the clothing industry forces companies to seek the cheapest labor and material. To get products that are the least environmentally harmful will cost the company more money. That can lead future CEO’s to look for less expensive resources that may not meet their current standards. For example, because Patagonia makes synthetic clothing, plastics used to make the clothing release micro-plastics into the water when washed. These micro-plastics cannot be completely filtered by waste water filtering plants. (Martinko, Katherine)

Recently Adidas have launched waterless dying technology known as DryDye technology. This technology instead of consuming 25 litters of water necessary to dye one t-shirt, the DryDye technology uses none–instead, the dye is injected using compressed carbon dioxide. The result is a garment using not only 50 percent less chemicals and energy, but in the long run has a lower environmental impact because the CO2-based dye actually lingers in the fabric longer. This concept helps in reduction of consumption of water in dying process.

Generations ahead of us only had a tiny wardrobe, where clothes were not washed every day. In our generation, fast fashion is in. It’s ok to have multiple shirts or shoes of the same color. It’s actually ok to throw away unwanted apparel. Apparel companies are beginning to focus on sustainable fashion, also known as eco fashion. Apparel, fashion, and textiles is the most polluting industry in the world. Every stage, that a garment goes through, uses up and threatens our resources.

The Levis Eco will appeal mostly to the True Naturals because they express deeply felt environmental concerns and tailor their actions and purchases to these beliefs. Since the jeans are made out of organic cotton, the True Naturals will be very appealed by it since they are for saving the environment.