High street fashion has become more and more competitive in recent years especially in the UK with brands such as Primark and H&M battling it out for the women’s ‘fast fashion’ crown. Stores like these are nuder pressure to be at the forefront of fashion in order to survive and quite amazingly you can see catwalk fashions, such as dresses and designer shoes, arrive on the high street in a matter of weeks at prices affordable to everyone. This is due to the manufacturers in countries such as China and India having such cheap labor costs along with their ability to produce designs in super fast time.
This may sound great for consumers but the rock bottom prices do come at a cost in other areas, namely the workers and environment. Luckily there are organizations that are looking for a way to produce a more sustainable manufacturing process which they hope to both improve output whilst improving the environmental footprint some of these processes leave. Recycling is a major focus as only 3.5% of the twenty billion pairs of shoes made worldwide each and every year are either re-used or recycled. The only place for the rest of them is in landfill sites which of course is not doing the environment any good
