Are your clothes worth it?
I've been studying ethical business a lot lately, especially this semester. In fact, my Senior Thesis for Torrey was about how U.S. apparel brands can make a difference in poverty in Guatemala. Learning more about how our clothes are produced kind of disgusted me. I was so proud to buy the $5 t-shirt from Target that I wear all the time, because I got a great deal! But I didn't know that there's a huge chance it was made in grim circumstances.
One report by Harvard said that products for companies such as Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney, and Hanes have been found to be produced by child laborers, many of whom are beaten, forced to work 20-hour shifts, and are paid only six and a half cents an hour. Even adults are exploited and work in unsanitary and unsafe working conditions, and often, these factories pollute local resources such as rivers.
Big U.S. apparel brands hide the gruesome facts, if they are even aware of them.
Customers live in blissful ignorance, celebrating their cheap finds, $4 coffee and smartphone in hand.
Is that what I want to support with my money?
I love finding deals. I get lots of satisfaction from saving money. But what does my $5 t-shirt really cost?
I'm done being the ignorant consumer. I'm done funding gross practices like these.
So, how can we stop it?
There are a few recommendations that ethical purchasing groups urge consumers to try. Here are some of them:
1. Buy Fair Trade products as much as possible. Fair Trade USA uses a rigorous certification process to ensure that brands are living up to the Fair Trade standard. Brands have to undergo audits that determine the impact that the clothing has on the people that produce it and the environment. Buying Fair Trade is a safe bet.
2. Research the things you buy. Brands don't like airing their dirty laundry - it's bad for business. But if you have access to the Internet (hint: you do), you can find out a lot about how brands produce their products. If a brand isn't transparent enough to list the factories it produces its clothing in, you can assume that it's hiding something and therefore it's not a good company to support.
3. Buy secondhand clothing. This reduces the amount of clothing that is produced unethically. You can find a lot of good, lightly-used stuff on eBay!
4. Don't buy as many clothes. Consumerism helps economies, but can hurt people if they're employed in the horrible circumstances listed above. Don't allow marketing campaigns or peer pressure to trick you into believing that you need that new dress or that edgy jacket. It's going out of style soon, anyways. Buy things that look good but also last.
Also, if you're the kind of shopper that buys cheap clothes, and buys a lot of them, you should consider buying fewer clothes, and when you do, buy clothing that is better quality.
5. Up-cycle clothes you already own, or swap with friends. This goes along with the anti-consumerism point. It's not bad to have a lot of clothes, it's just bad if we buy into fast fashion by buying cheap, unethical clothing, wearing each piece a few times, then throwing them into landfills. Was that worth exploiting the poor and ruining this beautiful earth? Probably not. Reduce, reuse, recycle! You know your friends have cute clothes.
6. Tell your friends. Odds are, they didn't know that their clothing is likely made in unethical circumstances. I didn't before I took the time to study it. Plato says that those with superior knowledge have the obligation to share it with others (Plato's cave allegory in The Republic). Be a good human. If you think it's wrong, tell people so they can think about changing their consumption practices as well.
It's time that we stand up to unethical production. Businesses shouldn't get away with producing their clothing like this. Consumers shouldn't be so uneducated about what they're really supporting with their money.
Alone, we can't really stop it. Together, we can.
