03/01/2025
By Katharine Webster
Gloria Donkor worked in the secondhand clothing industry in Accra, Ghana, for three years, going to the market early in the morning to pick through bales of clothing bought by wholesalers and find items she could resell. “I grew up wearing secondhand clothing; it’s normal in Ghana for everyday wear,” says Donkor, now a Ph.D. student in global studies at UMass Lowell.
Most of that clothing comes from the United States and Europe, Donkor says. But with the rise of “fast fashion”—inexpensive, trendy, mass-produced garments—the quality of secondhand clothing has declined. While some of it can be cut up to make and stuff pillows, 40% or more goes straight to landfills. Concerned about the effects of fast fashion on the environment and society, Donkor is now on a mission to blunt its negative impacts. She is one of many students and faculty members who are studying the environmental, economic and social effects of fast fashion, taking action and raising the alarm— especially among students, many of whom are in the Gen Z target demographic for today’s fast-fashion firms.
The Fast-Fashion Scrap Heap
Because most fast fashion is made from cheap synthetic fabrics and blends, it does not biodegrade—but it does shed microplastics as the fibers break down, Donkor says. Microplastics from the laundering and deterioration of synthetic textiles account for 16% to 35% of the microplastics found in the world’s oceans, according to the European Environment Agency.
“You see small hills of clothing in landfills,” Donkor says of the pileups of fast fashion castoffs in Ghana. “Sometimes you find clothing mixed into the sand on the beach near the big market. Sanitation does try to deal with it, but there’s so much that sometimes it clogs the storm drains and gutters.”
Donkor is trying to make a difference, one stitch at a time. She won a $4,000 grant from the university’s Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy to run pop-up “Seamingly Sustainable” workshops around campus, where she teaches students how to repair and “upcycle” their clothing by adding sequins, embroidery, lace and patches. Her plan is to start a student club that can pass on those skills. She is also researching the impact of Massachusetts’ 2022 textile disposal ban on the secondhand clothing market in Ghana.
Economics Prof. Monica Galizzi says that early fast-fashion firms such as Zara, H&M and Forever 21 took off because they responded quickly to the latest high-fashion trends, mass-producing inexpensive knockoffs and targeting teens and young adults.
“A piece of clothing wasn’t supposed to last forever,” she says. “Young people wanted to buy clothing that was relatively cheap, and they didn’t care so much if it was high-quality.” Now, nearly all clothing that Americans buy is fast fashion, Galizzi says. And in the past few years, online-only companies such as Shein—which charges as little as $3 for T-shirts and $7 for pants, while offering free shipping and returns—have updated and perfected that business model, harnessing the power of the internet to create “on-demand fashion.”
Shein, a Chinese firm, accounts for about half of U.S. sales among the biggest fast fashion firms, up from 11% in 2020, according to Bloomberg Second Measure. The company’s in-house designers and its network of thousands of small garment factories churn out an average of 6,000 new clothing designs each week.
The factories make only 100 to 200 of a single item to start, Galizzi says. Shein sells directly to consumers on its website and through its app, so it can quickly analyze which items are getting the most clicks and buys and then make more, she says. It also ships directly to consumers, which allows it to evade U.S. tariffs on shipments valued at $800 or more, a gap the government is trying to close. Meanwhile, the apparel factories and textile manufacturers that supply Shein use the cheapest possible materials and labor, says Galizzi, a labor economist.
“It’s a history that repeats itself,” she says. “We had Lowell and the textile mills, and when companies realized they could pay workers less in the South, they moved the factories to the South. And then when they realized they could pay workers less in East Asia, they moved their factories to China and India and Bangladesh.” Workers can be paid much less in developing countries not just because of widespread underemployment and a lower cost of living, Galizzi says: “They are using child labor, women’s labor, forced labor in some factories in China, and workers in unsafe conditions. We hear often of factory fires and workers dying because they were locked inside.” That’s the human cost of fast fashion, she says.
The Environmental Costs
In 2017, the average American bought 53 new pieces of new clothing each year, according to market research firm Euromonitor International, with women accounting for the largest share of consumers. Many of those consumers are teenagers and young adults, says Ellie Bancroft, a senior majoring in finance and minoring in sustainability who supervises a team of student “eco-reps” at the Rist Institute.
Young people often turn to companies like Shein because they’re on a tight budget, Bancroft says. But the environmental costs are high: For starters, the textile industry accounts for up to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, and 85% of all textiles are either incinerated or end up in landfills, she says. Those numbers keep rising as purchases of new, cheap clothing increase, driven by videos on TikTok and Instagram of fashion influencers opening and modeling their latest “Shein hauls” and similar online shopping sprees, Bancroft says. “The real problem is people who will buy $500 or $800 worth of fast fashion, wear everything once and then throw it away,” she says.
Bancroft, who also serves as president of the Student Society for Sustainability, got involved on campus after doing research as an Immersive Scholar with Mechanical Engineering Asst. Prof. Jasmina Burek.
Together with another Immersive Scholar, Alyssa Puglisi, they analyzed the lifecycle and carbon footprint of garments donated to a nonprofit in Worcester, Massachusetts, that aids refugees and immigrants from Southeast Asia. That cycle starts with growing cotton with lots of water and pesticides and making polyester out of petroleum, and then moves to manufacturing the fabric and the garments, through sale, donation and eventual disposal—plus transportation between each stage.
“Much of the donated clothing is garbage,” Bancroft says. “Even though people think donating is a good thing, it’s worse for the environment to donate clothes that can’t be reused than it is to throw them away or recycle them. Most of it ends up in huge garbage piles in poorer countries, especially in Africa, Indonesia and Southeast Asia.” The research team also found that the clothing with the lowest carbon footprint used by the immigrants was their traditional garments, which are made from natural fibers, washed by hand, air-dried and carefully preserved to hand down through their families.
Refuse, Reuse, Repair and Recycle
Even though young people are among the biggest consumers of on-demand fashion, there’s good news, too: Gen Z and millennials are more likely than older consumers to buy sustainably grown and biodegradable natural fibers, purchase secondhand clothing, use clothing rental services and recycle worn-out clothes, according to Bloomberg. Clothing recycling is a relatively new option in Massachusetts, says senior honors student AnthonyAmatucci, who did paid research through the Emerging Scholars Program with Burek and Smith-Walter on the effects of the state’s two-year-old textile disposal ban.
Textiles account for one-third of all landfill waste in the state, yet 85% of all discarded textiles could be donated, repurposed as wiping cloths or recycled into fibers for industrial use, according to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. Because of the ban, most cities and towns have bins and drop-off locations for used clothing, footwear, bedding, towels, curtains and even stuffed animals— and UMass Lowell is getting one, too. But many people are still unaware of the ban and recycling options, says Amatucci, who is double-majoring in economics and political science. He and psychology major Katrina Smith looked at the most effective ways of getting the recycling message out to people in different groups.
Amatucci says the research also made him take a hard look at his own consumption habits. Now, he’s buying fewer new clothes and occasionally going to thrift shops in search of “new-to-me” items. He likes saving money while reducing his carbon footprint. “When you take a step back, you realize how many clothes you’re going through,” he says. “Once you realize all that’s not necessary, you feel mentally cleaner, too.” Not surprisingly, the most popular event hosted by the Student Society for Sustainability is Thrift Day, when UMass Lowell students can “shop” piles and racks of donated clothing for free, Bancroft says. First, club members sort through the clothing, sending anything too worn to display to a textile recycler. After the event, clothing that students don’t “buy” is donated to a nearby thrift store. Donkor partners with Thrift Day by running a Seamingly Sustainable workshop at the same location.
In fall 2023, Burek’s lab calculated that Thrift Day helped to avoid 1,117 pounds in carbon dioxide emissions compared with making the same amount of new polyester and cotton clothing, while about 70 students left with an average of four pieces of clothing each.
Of course, UMass Lowell students don’t have to wait until Thrift Day to buy low-cost clothing. Bancroft often goes “thrifting” at local secondhand shops with friends from the sustainability club. “Pretty much everyone in the group loves to do that,” she says. Donkor says that if you’re willing to spend time hunting through consignment shops and thrift stores, you can find bargains and higher-quality items made of natural fibers. But even if you buy lightly used fast fashion, you’re still keeping clothing out of the waste stream for a while longer, she says.
“You can find some unique pieces,” she says. “It’s a job of patience and sorting and finding gems.”