Fast fashion refers to cheap, trendy clothing that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity culture and turns them into garments in high street stores at lightning speed to meet consumer demand. 

The idea is to get the newest styles on the market, so shoppers can purchase them when in style & discard them after a few wears. 

Imagine this winter you buy a lovely jumper and bobble hat.... Let's take a little look at these garments' journey.

What are these items made of?  

Cheap fabrics like polyester, polyurethane, rayon, spandex, nylon, made from non-renewable fossil fuels - petrochemical textiles. They require an immense amount of energy and resources to be produced. .  

Cheap, toxic textile dyes - Today, 90% of our clothes are dyed synthetically and require incredible amounts of water and often toxic...

Have you ver wondered about Tetra Pak cartons? They are becoming more and more common on our shop shelves - just how green a solution are they?

The environmental downsides to plastic bottles are mostly well known: they are expensive to recycle, recycling rates are low, there are limited options for the use of recycled plastic material, and plastic litter can wreak havoc with the environment. So, any person or business who are environmentally conscious, of course, would try to reduce and eliminate their plastic use.

Because of these considerations there has been an increase in metal and cardboard being used for drinks and liquid containers.

The rise in popularity of cardboard cartons, however, which are really complex composites of plastic-lined cardboard and aluminum, is a deeply imperfect solution.

Reducing plastic waste is only part of the problem: if plastic is replaced by containers that are not easy to recycle either then the replacements may not lead to an environmentally...

This is difficult to determine, because there is more than one issue at stake.

In terms of Co2 emission at the production stage, Tetra Pak cartons are the winner, followed by plastic, then aluminium, and surprisingly then glass is the worst.

Glass is the highest producer of carbon emissions because of what energy is required to produce it BUT if you are reusing the glass bottles, their shelf life is much greater than the other materials, and so it could be considered a more sustainable product.

In terms of plastic pollution and the ability to do closed loop recycling, glass and aluminium are the winners. And as you recycle them more times, their carbon emissions start to fall back down towards cartons and plastic.

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/guide-environmentally-friendly-drinks-packaging 

As per the above, it depends on how the item is going to be used and then disposed of.

Some are better in terms of their carbon emissions and others tie into the closed loop of...