The Toll of Textiles by National Geographic Magazine

Fashion may strive for glamour, but the industry is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluters. Over the past two decades, the number of new garments made per year has nearly doubled. Fast fashion purchases are soaring, as is the speed at which people discard cheaply made clothes. Low prices belie the environmental cost of producing the huge volume of fabric needed to feed the growth, with impacts varying by fabric type. Producing cloth from natural fibers (cotton, wool, hemp) and those made from wood pulp (“man-made cellulosic fibers,” or MMCFs) uses the least energy but requires more water than cheaper synthetics such as polyester and nylon. Hemp—the most sustainable in the quilt shown here— accounts for just 0.26 percent of global textile production.