Fake News Alert: Fashion Industry's False Polluter Statistics
If you follow fashion, you have probably heard that “the fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world,” or some similar derivative. Search Google for this, and hundreds of articles will come up spouting this fact. I too had heard this fact, and took it at face value; it is simple and shocking, and not hard to believe. After all, you would think the textile lobby would try to push back on this “fact” if it was not true...
And yet, it is not true.
I stumbled upon a New York Times article about a month ago called “The Biggest Fake News in Fashion,” and was pretty taken aback by its claim that the widely accepted fashion pollution statistic was not based in reality. The author, Vanessa Friedman, had followed a ponzi scheme-like trail of sources; Friedman would ask a source where they got the statistic, and most either couldn’t remember, or had heard the information from another person without ever getting the actual numbers from them. Someone most likely made up the statistic around 2008 when it first appeared, at which point laymen and experts alike accepted the fact without question.
I was not all that surprised that fake information had spread, nor that many had believed it (especially with the amount of misinformation constantly spreading online these days). However, I really couldn't wrap my head around the idea that not a not a single person since 2008 had questioned this very quantifiable statistic up until Friedman’s New York Times article. My confusion was apparently founded, because the article was not the first article to expose this monstrous lie; in fact, this New York Times piece acknowledges that an article on Racked had uncovered this lie almost two years earlier. I researched further and found at least three articles between the Racked and NYT articles exposing the idea: “Fashion Is NOT The Second Highest Polluting Industry, Here Are The Real Numbers,“ “PLEASE Stop Saying Fashion is the 2nd Most Polluting Industry After Oil“ and “Fashion is the 5th, not the 2nd, Most Polluting Industry.“
The widespread availability of articles disputing this fact made me even more confused and disappointed over the spread of the fake statistic. After all, if I could find multiple articles refuting the fact just by searching “Fashion is the second most polluting industry” in Google, I feel like writers of these false articles would have most likely seen them too. Which leads to the sad, cynical, and most likely true theory that the writers of many of these blogs and articles probably did not do almost any research before writing. Even worse, some writers of this lie probably saw the counter points, and chose to ignore them because of how the false statistic pops off the page.
The fashion industry is still bad for the environment. The New York Times provides the following true statistics about fashion… and they are sourced. One, nearly three-fifths of all clothing ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year of being produced. Two, more than 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the apparel and footwear industries. Three, around 20 to 25 percent of globally produced chemical compounds are utilized in the textile-finishing industry.
These statistics help explain why writers might knowingly lie about where fashion ranks of the list of polluting industry. Fashion may not be the second most polluting industry, but it would not be a wrong to say it is one of the top polluting industries. Further, fashion is one of the few things, along with transportation and meat consumption, that individuals can control in their everyday lives to help the environment. Authors with ethical agendas probably did not feel the need to try and disprove a statistic they felt could be used for good. Unfortunately, lying does matter and has observable negative influences. The more people complicit with unsourced information, the more likely we end up with, for instance, a president who spouts unsourced information. You should still buy used clothes, and you should still pass on clothes you no longer plan to wear rather than tossing them. Just make sure you don’t pass on false information.