FASHIONS GREEDY WATER CONSUMPTION

Did you drink water today? 1.1 billion people probably didn't. That many, or more, lack access to water and 2.7 billion find water sources scarce, according to an article posted by the WWF. Mentioning that at this rate, two-thirds of the global population could face water shortages in the next few years. That's nearly 5.3 billion people. 

I’ll tell you what is not lacking water - the Fashion Industry. WeForum states this industry is the second largest consumer of water worldwide! In fact, it's consuming far more than its fair share for clothing production. Refinery29 gave an in depth look into the issue of fashion and water a few years ago. It takes roughly 20,000 liters of water to produce 1kg of cotton. That one piece of cotton is equivalent to the size of a standard bag of sugar. Over 6,600 humans daily required water intake or one humans recommended consumption for 3 years, is used to make that one kilogram. SustainYourStyle puts it into perspective, there are 100 million people without water in India - the water used to grow cotton in India alone would cover 85% of that country's population's water needs. 

So, you know how much it takes for your one piece of cotton. But, in total, the industry consumes 1.5 trillion liters of water annually. Let's look at this in a different view. It's recommended the average human should drink 3 liters of water per day. 1.5 trillion liters is enough for 500 billion people to consume their required amount each day. Or about 1.3 million human’s consumption for an entire year! We have 3.7  billion people with scarce or no access to clean drinking water and we’re using it to make clothing? Clothing that will most likely be discarded within a year or two. 

Fast fashion production is on the rise. People are purchasing more from cheap brands producing mass amounts at a rapid pace. GreenPop tells us that in just 2 decades, the industry's clothing production is now up 400%. That's 400% more garments being produced each year than there were 20 years ago, and the number is climbing. That’s 80 billion pieces of clothing produced and purchased by consumers globally each year. With numbers rising like that, you can just imagine the number on the other side of things. The side we don’t see. The environmental impact side. 80 billion pieces. 1.5 trillion liters. 3.8 billion people. Did you drink water today?