The True Cost of Ultra-Fast Fashion: Cheap Clothes, High Consequences

Is ultra-fast fashion bad for the planet and people—or are sweatshops raising families and nations from poverty?

Eighteen years ago, while raising my two young towheaded children, I embarked on a month of consumer celibacy, writing about it for the NRDC’s OnEarth magazine. I was practicing a miniature version of “The Compact,” a social experiment in which 10 San Francisco-area friends stopped buying anything new for a year. Before long, the idea became a global movement to reduce one’s personal footprint. Mind you, this was well before the advent of social media with its influencers—or (literal) monkeys—excitedly unboxing Amazon packages or more recently, the fast fashion tornadoes that are Shein and Temu, flinging out new and exciting fashions and gadgets as fast as their underpaid, overworked factory employees can hustle.

Times have changed since then, with the advent of social media, Amazon’s one-click shopping, and the uber-cheap Chinese mega-brands that—if not for ourselves with our more refined tastes—allow our kids or grandkids to “shop like billionaires.” They’re happy, we’re happy. What do we have to lose?

Toxic Fashion: The Hidden Dangers in Your Closet

I hate to admit, but I do love shopping. I love scrolling my Insta feed late at night, and—what’s this?—a personalized family tree necklace that’ll make a perfect gift for my adopted daughter. Or remembering I need to buy a mask for her masquerade ball; click-click, it arrives two days later. But when I watched Netflix’s new Buy Now documentary, it reminded me of my Compact month, which, at the time, reset my lifelong personal desire to leave a positive legacy on the planet. Am I in need of another reset?

Even though a little retail therapy makes the heart happy, the earth isn’t happy. What’s more, we may be hastening the onset of cancers, neurological disorders, and other health issues by exposing our bodies to them: Imported shoes, handbags, and even baby clothes have recently been found to have lead and toxic chemicals at excessively high levels.

Truth be told, Temu and Shein aren’t just fast fashion, they’re “ultra-fast fashion.” And for those concerned about the cradle-to-grave life cycle of their products, ultra-fast fashion should give us pause. Compared to H&M’s 25,000 and Zara’s 36,000, Shein produces 1.3 million new items a year. This drives the conditions employees face: working up to 12 hours in unsafe factories, being exposed to harmful chemicals, and, in some cases, being prevented from organizing to fight for better conditions.

The People Speak: What Consumers Think About Ultra-Fast Fashion

When I asked people their thoughts on ultra-fast fashion, answers were across the board. “I have bought all of my summer dresses from Shein and love them!” said Wendi Richardson, Community Director for Legacy Learning, a nonprofit in Boone River Valley, Iowa. “My daughter buys most of her pants and skirts … as well as shoes [from Shein]. It works.”

“I have bought from [Shein and Temu] but don’t any more. The quality is poor, and the fabrics are usually a cheap synthetic,” said Kellie Snider, an artist and retired animal behaviorist in Pittsburgh. “[But] I have had some really good luck with shoes.”

While arguably better quality than clothing, the shoes have a dark side. Authorities in South Korea tested Shein and Temu imports in 2024, finding sandals with 10 times the admissible limit of lead and other shoes with 428 times the country’s allowable levels of phthalates, endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can cause reproductive harm.

Then there’s the increasing omnipresence of microplastics, tiny shards of different types of plastics that have been found from the top of Mount Everest to the guts, lungs, and brains of humans. More than a third come from synthetic fabrics like polyester, nylon, and acrylic. As clothing designer Roger Lee said in Buy Now, “We are eating our clothes.” And inhaling them, which is worse: Digestion allows you to eliminate microplastics, but inhalation can lodge them inside your organs. We are becoming human-plastic chimeras.

Fast Fashion’s Afterlife: Where Your Clothes Really End Up

“Fast fashion is hard on every segment of the world that it touches,” said Susan Stillman, a Houston realtor. “When I was a young mother, my father sent me a newspaper article about donating clothes that said that … [after] they have served us, they need to serve someone else, with dignity,” adding that it’s almost impossible to donate fast fashion because it doesn’t hold up, and it doesn’t make her feel good to wear.

After its life cycle at thrift stores ends, America exports nearly 800,000 tons of donated clothing each year, much to Africa. This has made it economically challenging for African designers to develop their fashion industries, despite bold colors, artistic fabrics, and a history of design innovation. Ghana alone imports 15 million items of used clothing weekly; Accra’s Sankofa beach is clogged with layers and layers of discarded clothing. As Ghanaian clothing designer Chloe Assam says in Buy Now, “just fucking stop.”

“I would rather buy from companies who are transparent about where they source their materials, use recycled or organic fabrics, and make sure their garments are created in factories with safe conditions and living wages,” said Stillman.

Sweatshops, Sustainability, and the Future of Fashion

In the 1990s and 2000s, economist Paul Krugman and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nick Kristof both advocated for sweatshops. After visiting Cambodia, Kristof declared the alternatives far worse—picking trash from toxic dumps, starvation, or sex work. Both he and Krugman, along with the conservative Ben Powell, Director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University, took the argument further, stating that these garment factories can help both individuals and nations rise out of poverty.

Wait, what? I had just reread The Jungle, a novel about Lithuanian immigrants working in meat factories in the early 1900s when American conditions approximated some countries we now import from. Based on real circumstances, the novel led to major reforms. At first, young Jurgis is overjoyed to work night and day chasing the American dream. But after a series of heartwrenching circumstances, including a deceptive home lender, sexploitation by Jurgis’ wife’s boss, and hard luck, they end off worse than they began.

However, there is economic evidence that sweatshops can help nations rise from the wreckage of poverty—with some guardrails. “Sweatshops are one of the first steps up the ladder out of poverty. Workers take these jobs because they are better than the available alternatives,” Powell told me. “For many, it’s a step up from informal agricultural work, pays better, and often has better conditions.”

America’s Industrial Revolution did result in jobs, innovation, and an emerging middle class, but that occurred in a country with a strong Constitution. Workers unionized to fight collectively for better conditions.

While arguments for sweatshops may carry some weight, they aren’t without detractors. “A smaller number of … garment supremos and dominant brands have accrued incredible private wealth,” said Lucy Siegle, author of To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? “Trickle-down economics … does not work in the garment industry. All of the opportunity is centered in the upper stratosphere in this supply chain. All of the risk is at the bottom.”

Whether sweatshops help or not, based on the excessive waste and chemical byproducts produced by ultra-fast fashion, I’m leaning to a hard pass. In the end, I like Stillman’s 30 wears rule. “Ask yourself, ‘Will I wear this 30 times?’” she said, with 300 or 3,000 even better. If the answer isn’t “yes,” maybe we should all just say no.