Fast Fashion’s Hidden Chain: From Exploited Environment In Bangladesh To Waste In The Global South
- IJLLR Journal
- Mar 27
- 2 min read
Prajakta Patel, Christ (Deemed to be) University, Lavasa, Pune
ABSTRACT
Fast fashion has established a worldwide chain of environmental unfairness whereby the Global North receives the rewards of over consumption whilst the ecological costs of production and wastes are transferred to the Global South. Despite the previous studies that explored the problems of industrial pollution in Bangladesh and the effect of second-hand garments to Africa and Latin America, there is little literature that links these two extremities of the fast-fashion cycle as one, systemic environmental detriment. The gap in this paper is that it asks the question: How do the Global North global fast- fashion model allow the Global North to externalise its environmental costs by manufacturing pollution of garments in Bangladesh and dumping of textile waste across the Global South? In this work, a qualitative approach based on secondary data of peer-reviewed articles, international environmental reports, and NGO research and waste-trade databases are used to prove that brands like H&M, Zara, and Shein choose Bangladesh as a mass production location because of the low environmental standards, where untreated dye effluents, heavy metals, chemical discharge, and microfibre pollution severely harm the rivers like Buriganga and Turag. These garments are sold as reused after brief use in Europe and North America, but most end up in nations such as Ghana, Kenya, Chile, Pakistan, and India in countries with fragile ecosystems, where they clog the market and release methane on decomposition, pollute the soil and groundwater, and are openly burnt, exacerbating the toxic air pollution. Such environmental hotspots as the Kantamanto Market of Ghana and the Atacama Desert of Chile reveal how waste colonialism is perpetuated in the frames of recycling and charity. With such mechanisms as Basel Convention and UNEP and UNCTAD systems, the problem of textile waste is still not properly controlled because of its loopholes and poor control. The paper finishes by stating that fast fashion is structurally exploitative and unsustainable in terms of environmental consequences, which demand more rigorous regulation of waste-trade, mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), transparent monitoring of textile movement, sustainable industrial standards, and better environmental regulation in developing countries.
Keywords: Fast fashion, waste colonialism, textile pollution, Bangladesh environment, Global South.
