The increasing production of clothing and accessories from fashion brands has led to rises in pollution, waste, and endangered animals. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the usage of agrochemicals and pesticides is the leading cause of pollution, especially in coastal regions. Countries such as the Aral Sea in Asia, Indus Delta in Pakistan, and the Murray Darling River in Australia faced water contamination due to excessive cotton production. The process of cotton production involves growing the cotton, ginning, spinning cotton, dyeing the fabric, constructing the garment, and finally distributing the cotton from the warehouse to the storefront. Thus, chemicals are essential in this process. Therefore, countries with high cotton production rates are living in a state of near-permanent water stress.

The problem is not just limited to water contamination, but it also increases waste in the environment. Recently, many fashion brands were found wasting and burning unsold and usable clothing. According to the Danish tv-program Operation X, the famous fashion brand H&M has incinerated approximately 60 tons of unsold clothing during the past few years. Although the brands started to incorporate sustainability in their clothing, many clothes such as the “cowboy trousers” containing significant amounts of lead were wasted and incinerated. A recent report by Pulse of the Fashion Industry stated that fashion generates 4% of the world’s waste each year, which is 92 million tons. 

The UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion is seeking to prevent the environmentally and socially destructive practices of fashion and start attempting to implement the industry in a drive for improving the world's ecosystems (UNEP, 2019) Currently, the alliance is improving collaboration with the UN agencies by analyzing their efforts on making fashion more sustainable and then presenting them to the government to encourage particular contributions and actions to improve this issue. 

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