Who doesn’t love that feeling of finding a great new piece of clothing that fits just right? Fashion is a fun form of self-expression that can help us feel really good about ourselves. While there are many ways to enjoy this form of self-expression and art ethically and sustainably, many fashion companies harm animals, the environment, and garment workers in order to produce their clothing.

Source: Al Jazeera English/Youtube

The fashion industry is a huge polluter. They use pesticide-intensive crops, use and pollute hundreds of gallons of water per shirt, and cause microplastics to get into our water. The process of making clothes is incredibly destructive and wasteful. Sadly, these practices have wreaked havoc in places where there is a large number of clothing factories, such as Bangladesh, which is one of the top garment producers in the world.

Dyeing fabrics requires large amounts of water and toxic chemicals, which are dumped into river and lakes after the clothing is dyed. Thus, rivers in Bangladesh have turned “pitch black” and the plants and animals that once lived in them have mostly died. The synthetic dyes and chemicals “have significant human health impacts and have been linked to forms of cancer, gastrointestinal problems, and skin irritation.” Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to avoid this as the water gets into irrigation systems and drinking water sources.

Levi’s is one of the companies with many factories in Bangladesh. They are a huge brand and could set an example for many others. Sign this petition to tell Levi’s to do the right thing and commit to funding their factories in Bangladesh in transitioning to more sustainable practices, including the immediate halting of all wastewater dumping into the country’s rivers and lakes!

To continue speaking up, sign these other petitions as well:

• Ban Clothing Companies From Burning Unsold Merchandise
• Urge Florida, Texas, and Louisiana to Commit to Carbon Neutrality by 2040
• Tell IFC to Divest from Factory Farming
• Support the Green New Deal!
• Demand the Trump Administration Restore NEPA
• Tell the EPA Not to Stop Policing Mass Polluters During Pandemic

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