GREED not, ‘Bunny Hugging’ is destroying ecosystems
Jacob Rees Mogg made claims that we could have cheaper clothes and shoes once we had severed the tyranny of the EU, ‘Cheap shoes for peasants!’ But don’t we already have £2 T-shirts from the like of slave trade promoters Primark, Asda alike? Would it really hurt if that T-shirt cost £3 so the workers got paid more than 60p a day? https://moralfibres.co.uk/high-street-shops-ethical/
The Swamp EEL cannot relate
J-Dog holds a substantial stake in 6bn Somerset Capital Management. The wheeling pencil has no affinity to the struggles of the people he is paid to serve. That man has not a thought for the people living along the Yumuna River in India and how our desire for fashion is killing them!
Consumerism is killing people
It is not only the UK poor that shop in cheap clothes outlets but also those who are addicted to Fashion. Easily persuaded by Social media influencers just Like the numbskulls that voted for Brexit.
A fake image of perfection digitally enhanced is the disguise that shelters the truth behind the products.
With this powerful network of sponsored content shouting at us to BUY BUY BUY how are we to expect the public to take a moment to think about their purchase decisions.
Our browsing history and habits are collated and sold to marketing firms just so they can pump more of the same into our social media feeds. We are being GROOMED!
I also have been in that trap of consumerism! Ok, not Foundation cream but tech.
I remember always considering the price of clothes for our 6 children. We did not have the choices that are available now. So when ASDA and Tesco started their line of school clothes we were grateful to have cheap clothes readily available. But did I give it a second thought to how they were produced? No
Our desire to have everything comes at a cost
Many textile firms function along India’s Yumana river; some are better than others but none are ethical.
In India’s Yamuna river is replenished with toxic chemicals and sewage. Those who enter the water emerge caked in dark, glutinous sludge. For vast stretches only the most resilient bacteria survive.
Brexiters use that factless argument that J-Dogs ‘Cheap Shoes for Peasants’ a phrase adopted by (James O’Brien) as a Brexit win but there is no financial gain unfortunately there is a huge environmental cost. Not just to the poor people working in extreme conditions but also to the ecological systems. Losing EU markets due to NTB’s has increased direct purchasing from India but at a higher cost in the pocket but also for the environment.
The Hydrologic cycle takes up these toxins and then rains down on us!
I live in Rural France and our water is sourced via our hand-dug well. I am very conscious of the changes in water quality in relation to the current weather and land conditions. For instance, when there is heavy rainfall for a long period the aquifers have a distant sulphur content.
Seepage or other groundwater sources are easily contaminated by farmers or just local traffic. I can’t imagine how bad it would be if we had a textiles factory discharging toxic waste into our water course.
When are we going to take responsibility for our complicity in poisoning the world’s drinking waters? You may ask what this has to do with Primark, well this particular budget clothing store is not the only culprit but it is fair game.
The garment industry is accelerating India’s growing water crisis.
An Indian Hindu devotee performs rituals in the Yamuna river, covered by chemical foam caused due to industrial and domestic pollution, during the Chhath Puja festival in New Delhi, India on November 2, 2019
If you find yourself driving into Delhi at the crack of dawn, you will be staring at looming soft mountains of candy pink foam rising from the grey surface of the river Yamuna.
It was only in 2013 when the Rubbish clothing manufacturer Primark faced savage attacks from the public. But it did not take long for the people of the UK to forget the Rana Plaza disaster, which killed 1,129 people including child labour as young as 11 years old in Bangladesh. Primark is always the first to get the whip but let us not forget the other stores which operate unethically!
The dark face of fashion that remains in the shadows – the face, not just of the rising consumption of clothes around the globe, but also of the true cost of cheap, ready-to-wear garments that we are quick to buy and discard.
The heaps of toxic foam that engulf the Yamuna, for large parts of the year, are linked to the phosphate content of detergents in the wastewater of cloth manufacturing units. Several such units are scattered all over the northern Indian state of Haryana, which borders Delhi.
In the small town of Panipat alone there are hundreds of dyeing units, and many of these units release toxic aniline waste into the river and arsenic among other toxic chemicals
Drains that carry these effluents run through villages, polluting their potable water. Until recently locals would use the water, despite it being variously coloured with chemical dyes, but now they claim it is not even fit to use for their cattle.
This state of affairs has serious repercussions for the majority of Haryana’s population because they depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.
Farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to cultivate crops that have been traditionally grown in the state with the scant usable water that is available.
Thousands of these same farmers have joined what has been called the biggest protest in world history.
I do feel I’m ‘flogging a dead Horse’ as I believe the bulk of the population does not care about the lives of people who they cannot see as long as they can carry on buying rubbish clothing as though it is a sport?
Sources:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/4/19/the-high-cost-of-indias-cheap-garment-exports
https://www.indmedica.com/journals.php?journalid=7&issueid=63&articleid=793&action=article