This short series focuses on December as the time of the great orgy of overconsumption. Second case: the massive online purchase of clothes that are rarely worn and immediately thrown away.
There is a place in northern Chile, in the Atacama Desert, where clothes from all over the world, new or used, go to die. Last year alone, the cemetery of fabrics and shoes swelled by 46,000 tons that will take centuries to disintegrate by pouring polluting chemicals into the fragile hyperarid ecosystem. The site also receives old cars and tires known to be capable of polluting the environment for thousands of years.
“We are not only the local backyard, but that of the world, which is worse”, summarized at the beginning of the month to Agence France-Presse the mayor of the city of Alto Hospicio, in the heart of the Atacama.
The shameful waste of clothes is growing with the trend of serial turners. These cyber consumers have become accustomed to ordering several items at the same time (sometimes the same in different sizes or colors) and then returning the unwanted ones. Another developing trend is called the wardrobing (propose this translation: the guard), which is the fact of buying a garment and wearing it punctually before returning it.
Cleaning and packing low-end fabrics costs more than disposing of them. A t-shirt produced in Asia by an exploited seamstress, bought in Limoilou for a few dollars (the good deal…) then returned to Los Angeles, can therefore end up piled up in Chile.
The holiday season amplifies the phenomenon so characteristic of our shock and knock era. If the trend continues, US consumers will once again return between 20 and 30 percent of the goods purchased during the great consumer orgy from Black Friday (stretched over a week now in November) until the post-Christmas sales.
The first question to ask is whether the person really needs a good. If so, we can buy a used good, for example, or a good produced locally, with recycled materials. There is always a way to find the best possible item from an ecological point of view.
We don’t see why it would be so different here. Merchants even face customers who choose them based on their return policy. A recent study has established that consumers, generally reluctant to measures prohibiting the return of goods, could accept targeted measures to counter, or at least temper, serial returners.
A deadly system
“It’s very depressing to see how much we waste resources,” said Andréanne Brazeau, analyst at Équiterre, an environmental pressure group. She was interviewed on her return from COP27 in Egypt as COP15 began in Montreal. “Once again, developing countries are suffering the consequences of overconsumption in developed countries,” she adds, speaking of the Chilean dump. the serial return becomes the logical continuation of an already broken consumer system. »
Mme Brazeau points to several very destructive realities in this deadly system: the production of objects in too large quantities in poor working conditions with polluting means and materials; unnecessary transport of overpackaged goods — including express delivery that does not optimize space in polluting vehicles; and, of course, the final destruction of an asset that has never been used. “We can see that, fundamentally, something is wrong. »
Whose fault is it ? consumers, and serial return in particular, are obviously to blame. Shops too. “Companies can put in place barriers to abusive returns by blocking certain people who abuse, says the environmental analyst. They can show the environmental impact of the purchase or simply put a price on the most polluting practices. Consumers must be given as much information as possible to enable them to make the best choices. »
Sustainability certification in connection with delivery also opens up possible solutions. Local or national governments can legislate, if only to reduce the size or number of delivery trucks in certain neighborhoods.
“But the first question to ask is if the person really needs a good, says Mr.me Brazeau. If so, you can buy a used good, for example, or one produced locally, with recycled materials. There is always a way to find the best possible item from an ecological point of view. »
The empire of the hyperephemeral
In fact, the desire to own new babies seems to be stimulated more and more accelerated. The new timeline of the fashion industry, concentrated in the fast fashion, amplifies destructive practices. This express fashion breaks the traditional cycle of biannual collections. The trend launched at the turn of the century by the Spanish empire Zara, quickly followed by H&M or Forever 21, constantly renews the stock of clothing stuck to trends by relying on the control of the entire production and distribution chain.
“These vertically integrated companies bring out new things by adapting to consumer demands in an extremely short time,” explains Madeleine Goubau, who teaches at UQAM’s École Supérieure de Mode. So we end up with a multiplication of collections and a proposal of new styles on a weekly basis, if not daily. »
This new empire of the hyper-ephemeral is based on an obsolescence of things and of meaning through burst operations of seduction and constantly renewed marginal differentiations. It’s holiday overconsumption, but year-round.
The inspirations and buzz come from the streets, TV shows and, of course, social media and influencers. Mme Goubau points out that the combination of life and online commerce has stimulated a second phase of the fast fashionwith this time, as an emblematic actor, the Chinese giant Shein, with thousands of suppliers guided by the collection of massive data, tracking devices, constant sales on products already sold off, etc.
“Shein creates collections by anticipating consumer desires through digital data,” says the specialist. The company comes up with new styles every day, hundreds if not thousands of new clothes. It’s here fast fashion to the thousandth power. »
This rapid and massive overconsumption extends throughout the fashion system. “We can consume too much and too quickly used, high-end, whatever,” says Madeleine Goubau. We also value the fact of having a lot of clothes and consuming them, instead of owning them. People want quantity without worrying about quality. They give themselves a clear conscience by buying organic cotton t-shirts, but buying too many is still overconsumption. »
The solution seems obvious. Better to buy less and better. Better is better quality, better cut, good fabric clothes that last for years. Mme Goubau agrees, but above all she points to the responsibility of the media in this great whole of shared faults around the series returns and the overconsumption of Christmas.
“The first step must not be taken by the consumer or the industry, but by the media, which must offer neutral and quality information about fashion, which is very little done because fashion is considered a light, feminine and frivolous subject, she concludes. We need to talk more about this globalized industry. You have to cover fashion with the same rigor and the same desire to serve the public interest as you do, for example, when covering food. »