Skip to content

Chapter 21 · 2020–Present

The Circular Reckoning

Fast Fashion, Sustainability Law, and the Next Fiber

The third decade of the twenty-first century has forced the industry to confront its full bill: microplastic pollution, documented labor abuses in ultra-fast fashion, and growing consumer and regulatory pressure against disposable clothing. The textile economy is being contested in legislatures, courts, and laboratories.

Jump to classroom kit
A textile-recycling bin beside ordinary waste containers. Most discarded clothing worldwide is still landfilled or incinerated.
A textile-recycling bin beside ordinary waste containers. Most discarded clothing worldwide is still landfilled or incinerated.Daniel Capilla, "Textile Recycling Container and Waste Containers," Málaga, Spain (2022). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The post-pandemic era has crystallized a reckoning two decades in the making. Ultra-fast-fashion platforms such as Shein, adding thousands of new styles to their sites each day, have drawn investigations into working hours, product safety, and copying, and have prompted legislative responses in Europe and the United States. The European Union adopted a strategy in 2022 for sustainable and circular textiles by 2030. In New York, a proposed Fashion Act that would require large brands to map and disclose their supply chains has been introduced in every session since 2022 but had not passed as of 2026. Resale platforms have grown rapidly, and industry forecasts project further gains. Biomaterials companies are experimenting with materials grown from mycelium and fermented proteins—though several high-profile ventures have stalled. The next chapter of the four-century American textile story is being written in real time.

Inside this chapter

Classroom Kit

Who should pay the true cost of fast fashion: brands, consumers, governments, or the workers who already do?

Primary source

Employment Injury Insurance in Bangladesh (statement)

International Labour Organization, January 29, 2024

On 24 April 2013, the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which housed five garment factories, killed at least 1,132 people and injured more than 2,500. ... These disasters, among the worst industrial accidents on record, awoke the world to the poor working conditions faced by workers in the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh.

Context: The UN's labor agency reflects on the factory disasters that exposed the human cost of cheap clothing made for Western brands. After Rana Plaza, brands and unions signed the legally binding Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety.

Source: Employment injury insurance in Bangladesh: Bridging social security cases. International Labour Organization. 2024

Primary source

Senate Bill 62: Garment Worker Protection Act

California State Legislature, September 27, 2021

Adding to this problem is the peculiar way in which garment workers are paid—by the piece. Not only does utilizing the piece rate enable, and even justify, subminimum wage, but it also creates unsafe working conditions, as garment workers are forced to constantly work as quickly as possible to complete as many items as possible in a workday. ... To ensure that employees are paid for all hours worked, an employee engaged in the performance of garment manufacturing shall not be paid by the piece or unit, or by the piece rate.

Context: California, home to the largest garment manufacturing workforce in the United States, banned piece-rate pay in garment work and made brands jointly liable for wage theft by contractors. It was the first U.S. law of its kind.

Source: SB-62 Employment: garment manufacturing (2021–2022). California Legislative Information. 2021

Discussion questions

  1. According to the ILO, what happened at Rana Plaza and the Tazreen factory?
  2. California's legislature argues that piece rates are dangerous as well as unfair. What reasoning does SB 62 give for that claim?
  3. Compare SB 62's ban on piece rates with Clara Lemlich's 1909 complaints and Sarah Bagley's 1845 testimony. What has changed for garment workers, and what has not?
  4. New laws in several states make brands pay for collecting and recycling used textiles. Is it fairer to regulate brands, tax consumers, or rely on voluntary resale and recycling programs? Argue.

Key terms

Fast fashion
A business model that rapidly copies trends and produces large amounts of cheap clothing meant to be worn briefly.
Circular economy
An economic system designed to keep materials in use through repair, reuse, and recycling instead of throwing them away.
Extended producer responsibility
Laws requiring manufacturers to pay for collecting, recycling, or disposing of their products after customers are done with them.
Joint liability
A legal rule that makes a brand share responsibility for violations committed by the contractors it hires.
Wage theft
When employers fail to pay workers wages they are legally owed, for example by paying below minimum wage or skipping overtime.

Sources

  1. Government recordEU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (COM(2022) 141). European Commission (EUR-Lex), 2022.
  2. Primary source75-hour weeks for Shein: Public Eye looks behind the Chinese online fashion giant's glitzy front. Public Eye, 2021.
  3. Government recordFashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act (A4631B, 2025–2026 session). New York State Senate.

Cite this page (Chicago)