University of Denver Spring/Summer 2023

Fashion factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing more than 100 workers. A year later, more than 1,100 people died when Dhaka’s Rana Plaza Building, which housed five garment factories, collapsed. Tackling fast fashion’s disastrous effects is no small—or inexpensive—task. At the other end of a garment’s life cycle, the waste stream awaits. Americans sent 11.3 million tons of textiles— nearly 70 pounds per person—to the landfill in 2018, according to the EPA. Audits indicate that landfill-bound clothing typically includes massive numbers of never been-worn items, deemed unsellable by manufacturers and retailers. Not all of the discards are destined for domestic landfills. Many are shipped around the world—often to the global south—for recycling, resale or, more often than not, disposal. Though clothing resellers and recyclers give some of these garments a second life, most of them accumulate as waste. Staggering piles of waste. Think the Atacama Desert, the beaches of Accra. Putting the brakes on fast fashion Tackling fast fashion’s disastrous effects is no small—or inexpensive—task, says Jack Buffington, assistant professor of supply chain management at the Daniels College of Busi ness and University College. To satisfy consumer demand for cheap goods, the industry relies on a global network of producers, manufacturers, logistics firms and retail outlets. To keep costs down, labor is outsourced to the cheapest possible far-flung locations. Cotton may be produced on one continent, shipped to another for assembly into hoodies and sun dresses, and then transported to still another continent for sale at a fast-fashion outlet. All of this means that fashion producers are predicting—and shaping—trends weeks or months in advance. Because they can’t neces sarily anticipate demand, they often manufacture greater numbers of garments than can be sold, leaving vast amounts of unused clothing to be incinerated, buried or dumped. “They could reduce the waste by bringing the supply chain closer to the consumer and doing more on-demand production, but that would cost too much, and consumers don’t want to pay more,” Buffington says. A system optimized solely to meet demand for low priced clothing will, by design, take a toll on the environment and human health. Making clothing supply chains more sustainable requires a different calculus. “We, as people, are producers, consumers, citizens, and we’re investors. That’s why you bring everything local and then you optimize on what’s best for the consumer, the producer, citizen and shareholder,” he says.

The University’s on-campus thrift store demonstrates the benefits of keeping garments local. (Please see story on page 22.) In addition to diverting discards from the landfill, the store, by sorting and selling secondhand apparel on campus, limits emissions from transportation, says Sarah Bexell, clinical associate professor in the Graduate School of Social Work and faculty director of DU’s Center of Sustainability. “It all stays right here at DU,” she says. “We’re keeping it in the cycle.” And those looking for a good deal are in luck. “Our students get rid of really nice stuff.” Students with purchasing power also have the power not to purchase. In other words, they have the power to regulate demand. When he makes this point, Buffington draws on another environmental problem, one related to single-use plastics: “A chemist at DuPont invented the plastic bottle,” he says, “but he’s not the guy who produces a billion of them every day. That’s the supply chain. And the minute that the consumer says no more plastic bottles will be the day that the supply chain stops producing them.” But what if consumers don’t oblige? “We also need public policy,” Akaka says. “We need policies in place that consider the consequences or inconveniences for consumers and weigh them out with the benefits to the environment.” Of course, such policies—affecting everything from working conditions for textile laborers to content labels on gar ments—will likely come with a price: increased costs, slower production cycles, reduced inventories, fewer choices for consumers. “These are not easy tradeoffs to identify or measure, but we must continue to explore them to make progress,” she adds. Although Katessia Robertson understands the magnitude of the challenge, she remains convinced that consumer activism can make a real difference. “You do have power to make ecologically responsible decisions as a consumer,” says Robertson, who is pursuing a master’s of social work with a concentration in ecological justice. First, consume less. When you can, buy secondhand and repair worn clothing. If you must purchase a new garment, look for well-made clothing that is produced sustainably and designed to last. True, a lack of transparency and persisting misinformation about manufacturing processes can make it hard for consumers to know when they are supporting truly sustainable practices. With that in mind, Robertson proposes a solution applied to organic foods. “We can regulate what sustainable means and whether companies are allowed to use natural, recycled or sustainable on their tags.” Consuming less, shopping secondhand and purchasing wisely may seem like small steps—so small they can’t possibly amount to much. But if efforts like these gain enough momentum, they are sure to catch the attention of fast fashion’s movers and shakers, its influencers and, by extension, its producers. As Besharat of the Daniels College of Business notes, in this age of social media marketing, “consumers are watching every move by every brand out there. And brands are listening to what consumers are thinking.”

SPRING/SUMMER 2023 • UNIVERSITY of DENVER MAGAZINE | 21