Is SHEIN the Biggest Polluter In Fashion? Stats Are Damning but Do Americans Care? AOC Fashion

Updated: Today, news is breaking that after last week’s March 2023 Congressional hearings about TikTok, a new coalition of environmentalists, activists and now online privacy protectors and national security professionals is creating a hypothetical “sister act” synergy between TikTok and Shein.

Called ‘ShutDownShein’, the new organization argues:

Shein and the insidious business model it is building on the backs of American children is a national security threat to the United States.

That’s a very dramatic assertion, and AOC hasn’t even read the entire press release. I can’t imagine America’s young women learning that there’s a serious movement to not only contain and regulate TikTok, but now to also take on Shein.

Previously: Almost like a fashion space rocket, China-based Shein [pronounced she-in, not shine] now owns almost a third (28 per cent) of America’s fast fashion market.

Few sustainability warriors saw it coming. And for all the convos about young people being passionate eco-conscious caretakers of our planet, at least in America, they have given a big hug to Shein.

We have no agreement on where the fashion industry ranks among polluters on the planet. You will read the fashion occupies second place after oil, but in a dated but factual article written in December 2018, New York Times Fashion Editor Vanessa Friedman argues that very little data makes the case for fashion’s second-place ranking.

In a discussion that didn’t center on Shein in 2018, Friedman does accept data peppered all over AOC:

Consider the following:

Nearly three-fifths of all clothing ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year of being produced.
More than 8 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions are produced by the apparel and footwear industries.
And, around 20 to 25 percent of globally produced chemical compounds are utilized in the textile-finishing industry.

Read on for the Shein statistics. They will make you weep. Is SHEIN the Biggest Polluter In Fashion? Stats Are Damning.