Fast fashion is eating up the planet - and this feeble government enables it | Gaby Hinsliff

Nobody needs a ?1 bikini. This is a hugely polluting industry and it's pathetic that ministers have refused to actHow long would you expect to keep a bikini that cost only a quid?It's always possible that women will treasure forever something costing less than a bus fare, I suppose. But let's just say few of us are likely to be handing the ?1 black two-piece launched by the cut-price online retailer Missguided this week down to our daughters. This is practically the dictionary definition of throwaway fashion, stuff designed to be worn a couple of times and chucked at the end of the summer. It's pitched as a bit of fun, but when you factor in the environmental cost of making the fabric (polyester can be made from oil by-products or recycled plastics), shipping the bikini from wherever it's sewn together and ultimately burying it in landfill - suddenly it doesn't seem quite so feel-good. Continue reading...