Clothes that carry weight: the ecological and social debt of fast fashion.

The fast fashion phenomenon represents one of the most emblematic contradictions of our time, a system in which economic, social, and environmental dynamics intersect, perpetuating a vicious circle that is hard to break.

Behind every cheap garment, in fact, there hides a cycle of intensive exploitation of labor and natural resources, massive CO2 emissions, water waste, and textile waste that invade every part of the world.

For this reason, the 2025 edition of M’illumino di Meno, a sensitization campaign promoted by the Caterpillar program on Rai Radio2, focuses on the need to rethink our relationship with fashion, promoting virtuous models of reuse and creative recovery.
The MAN museum, always attentive to social and environmental issues, participates with a program that intertwines art, education, and awareness.

IFast fashion is the product of an economic system that prioritizes immediate profit at the expense of collective welfare, pushing people toward overconsumption. Intensive production, fueled by underpaid labor in developing countries, is a manifestation of systemic inequality that puts at risk the health of the planet and human dignity. To rethink this model means promoting an equal redistribution of resources, based on principles of sustainability and justice.

This phenomenon concerns not only unregulated consumption but also energy waste. Each phase of clothing production—from cotton cultivation to textile processing, and even global transportation—involves vast amounts of resources. The result is a fast and unsustainable cycle, where clothes become waste before they have reached the end of their functionality.

A striking example of the environmental costs of fast fashion is the dump in the Atacama Desert in Chile, where thousands of tons of unsold clothes are abandoned each year, damaging the local ecosystem. Another significant case is found in Accra, Ghana, where the Kantamanto market is overwhelmed by textile waste mainly coming from Western countries.

These examples show how, in the contemporary world-system, ecological costs are “externalized,” transferred from developed countries to the Global South. The concept of ecological debt clearly explains this dynamic: the countries responsible for emissions and environmental degradation do not suffer the direct consequences, which instead fall on vulnerable communities. But what is hidden is never truly far away.

For many people, choosing cheap clothing is not a matter of fashion, but of survival. In a context where access to sustainable clothing is often limited by high costs and poor distribution, fast fashion becomes the most accessible option. In some cases, therefore, blaming those who buy fast fashion is not only unfair, but shortsighted, as it ignores the structural causes that make this phenomenon so widespread and appealing.

­The reflection we need to make is deep and collective: how can we create a system that does not exploit the most vulnerable, that does not harm the planet, and that, at the same time, respects the needs of those living with few resources?

Alessandro Moni

Sources

Naomi Klein, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (1999)

Joan Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (2002)

Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System (Volumi I-IV, dal 1974 al 2011)

Elizabeth Cline, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion (2012)

Dana Thomas, Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes (2019)

Caption for the image: During the exhibitionDiorama. Generation Earth”, realizzata lo scorso anno, il museo MAN aveva esposto una importante opera d’arte contemporanea dell’artista portoghese Vanessa Barragão, fatta di filati di riciclo, frutto dell’industria della moda, in aperta denuncia contro sprechi e inquinamento.