{"id":2956,"date":"2019-06-06T11:30:48","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T11:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=2956"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:20","slug":"exactly-what-are-you-wearing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/06\/06\/exactly-what-are-you-wearing-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Exactly What Are You Wearing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alienation is the isolation of knowledge from the\npublic domain in terms of the goods they purchase and produce as well. A young man\nwho has gone through tertiary education and has studied business administration\nis less likely to know the negative impacts fashion has in regards to sustainability<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fashion is used to determine how people live and what\nmatters in people\u2019s lives. Nowadays people have four times the amount of\nclothes in their wardrobes than the people born in the nineteenth century. What\nmost people do not know, is that hundreds of tons of clothes are thrown away\nevery year. The fashion industry is growing and Africa has not been left behind\nwith countries such as Nigeria and South Africa embracing the trend. A lot of\ninformation is left missing when setting up these fashion industries. Study\nshows that 20% of the global waste water is produced by textile and fashion\nindustries.  In addition, ten percent of global\ncarbon\nemissions<\/a> are produced in the apparel industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developed countries such as United Kingdom and Britain\nhave embraced fast fashion due to the ever-rising trends and competition from\nvarious brands. Fashion fanatics change their sense of fashion every now and\nthen. Their unwanted clothes present in the wardrobes make their way to the\nAfrican soil as second-hand clothes commonly known as \u2018mitumba.\u2019 Kenya, Benin\nand Ghana are key importers of these clothes. What we fail to question is the\nconsequences of these second-hand clothes in regard to sustainability. Fast\nfashion is designed for lower quality, no one is meant to keep them. In short,\nAfrica serves as a dumping site for the waste in fashion industry from\ndeveloped countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once these clothes make way into our market the demand\nis huge. They are appreciated as they seem trendy and are cheaper than those\nmade by local textile industries. But\nexactly what are we buying beyond what pleases the eye?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the high time we think of fashion in a different\nway. Fashion has a huge impact on the environment. The polyesters and synthetic\nfabrics are mostly made from petroleum. This includes the eco-friendly fabric\nclothes made from recycled plastics and waste materials. Most \u2018eco-friendly\u2019\npractices in the fashion industry cause more harm than good. Cleaning of these\nclothes for example sees the release of half a million tons of micro-fibre to\nwater bodies. The same micro-fibres eventually find their way to our plates\nthrough the food chain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to prevent mildew in the transportation of\nclothes, formaldehyde is used. This chemical helps reduce the presence of\nwrinkles in clothes. Bales that make their way to the African soil contain this\nchemical. Consumers who buy these clothes and wear without washing experience\nhead aches and sore throats as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"

lady in second hand clothes. image source: google.com <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As retailers continue to produce new collections, more and more second-hand clothes will continue to make their way to Africa. In 2018, East African countries- Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda were out to effect a ban on importation of second-hand clothes by 2019. Unfortunately, the implementation has only taken place in Rwanda. Given that only a minority can afford clothes from textile industries in Africa upcycling should also be introduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upcycling<\/a> entails\nthe use of a fashion product multiple times- different pieces of clothes are\nstitched to make a whole new cloth. However, this serves as a huge appeal in\nwestern countries. The upcycled clothes, do not reach out to the upper-class\naudience in the African society, making it hard to get necessary funds in\nmaking this type of produce. The upcycling\nstart-ups in Africa appeal to the foreigners, gets support from western\ndesigners and end up in online stores for international distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Government should also regulate the policies that are centred on second-hand clothing importation to reduce an oversupply of the same. It is time we out aside the business model that seeks to promote profit over the ecological principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer behavior plays a huge role.\nStitching was in the past passed down from mothers to their daughters but that\nhas changed overtime due to factors such as modernization. When \u2018mitumba\u2019\nclothes get torn as a result of their short \u2018life span\u2019 techniques such as knitting,\nand stitching should be embraced. This care of the clothes we already possess\nwill reduce waste caused by clothing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alienation is the isolation of knowledge from the public domain in terms of the goods they purchase and produce as well. A young man who has gone through tertiary education…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92,111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-responsibility","category-social-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}