Students from around the world calculated their class mean and standard deviations for their footprints and posted them on our world map.
Do you see differences across the globe? If so, why do you think those differences exist?
Did you use the calculator to try to reduce your footprint down to the average from a citizen of another country? What changes would you have to make to lower your footprint in this way? Are you going to try and take some of these actions in your daily life?
Student Footprints >
Where do your clothes come from?
What many people don't know is that the fast fashion industry is the second biggest contributor to pollution, right after the oil industry. This means that nearly every single brand you purchase at the mall- from nike to forever 21- is contributing to global warming. When people think of sweatshops, many people think of child labor. Although child labor is a huge problem, sweatshops also create massive amounts of pollution. This pollution is created by the factories dumping chemical dyes into rivers, and dumping waste products. For example, Nike has been dumping excess rubber from shoes into huge piles that are later burned, putting all kinds of toxic gases into our atmosphere and the air those in 3rd world countries are forced to breathe (this has been going on for over 15years, just imagine all the rubber!). It is easy for us to by cheap clothing from brands like forever 21 or zara because we are all students and can't afford to shop at high end places. Instead of supporting these businesses, we should all make the move to either shop at companies that produce in the U SA or at second hand stores. It is a sacrifice between looking cool and hurting our earth, because eventually the earth won't be able to take what we're doing to it anymore and we will all regret hurting our planet just to be cool.
I never considered how big of an impact the clothing industry had on the environment until now! I always knew that unfair labor was a big issue in the industry, but I never really thought about the sustainability side of it. Because of this, I think it is really important for people to know exactly where their clothing is coming from, and how it is made. It's a shame that some of the biggest and most well-known companies in the world are having such negative impacts on the environment, and so many people don't know about it. Even I own a lot of Nike shoes, and when I bought them I didn't think twice about how much they contributed to global warming. There are a lot of more sustainable clothing brands or collections that I think people should be more aware of, such as H&M's conscious collection, which uses local, sustainable fabrics while not sacrificing style.
Source: http://www.elle.com/fashion/g8913/best- … s/?slide=4