the power of jeans
Turns out your jeans really can save the world!
Alrighty, so my days of "The Eco Denim Movement" may have passed (ended up donating all the denim to the Women's Crisis Centre here down south!), but the messages and education side of things is still just as important.
Here I have collated some of the most important messages I shared through my years of TEDM... hopefully it'll teach you something new and maybe even empower you to shop a lil more mindfully next time your looking for jeans :)
2.7 billion. That’s the number of people who in our world are currently facing water scarcity
12.4 trillion. That’s how many litres of water are being used by the denim industry every single year. Enough to supply each of those 2.7 billion people with 4 years worth of drinking water.
Water scarcity affects 43 countries in our world and is only expected to rapidly grow in the next few years. If we continue to use excessive amounts of water, at this rate by 2025 two thirds of the worlds population will be living with severe water shortages.
The denim industry is one of the biggest consumers of water in our world, which is something that can completely be changed through the eco denim movement. Every time you purchase a second hand pair of jeans over a new pair, you are saving 10,000L of water that would have been instead used in the production stages.
Our world is in a crisis. More people are suffering from water shortages than ever before. The things is, there is enough water on the planet for everyone, its just a matter of it being evenly distributed. Every year 12.4 trillion litres of water are being used by the denim industry every single year.
Many people don’t actually realise how much water is needed to produce our everyday items. A single pair of jeans can take 10,000L of water to produce. To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of 33 standard size bathtubs. Purchasing from the eco denim movement will not only provide you with high quality, affordable denim, but will also help in the fight to end water inequality. By simply buying a pair of second hand jeans over a pair of brand new ones, you are saving around 10,000L of water that would have otherwise been used in the production process.
Fast fashion is one of the most wasteful issues in our world today. On average, Australians buy around 27 kilograms of new clothing each year. Of that 27kg, around 60% will find its way in landfill throughout that same period of time.
Our crazy obsession with cheap, low quality clothing is leading the denim industry into using terrible, harmful practices to keep up with the consumer demand. Water sources are being polluted, millions of hectares of land cleared, child and slave labour required, the release of excess carbon dioxide is speeding up the rate of climate change; the list goes on and on.
But in terms of fast fashion, we are the problem. We are the ones who are driving up the consumers demand and purchasing so much clothing. These purchases are what lead the denim industry to use harmful practices. But because we are the problem, we can also be the solution. Simply buy purchasing my second hand denim, you can stand up for slow fashion and the benefits that it has on the environment.
....That's all from me! Thanks for getting this far, and I really hope you learnt something new. If there's one thing to take away from this, its that every single action counts, and buying a pair of jeans sustainably can have giant positive benefits.
Stay happy and have a great week!!