49% of Clothes From 4 Major Online Retailers Come From 'Virgin Plastic'

A paper analyzing UK brands known for fast fashion – Asos, Missguided, Boohoo, and PrettyLittleThing – reports that an average of half of the clothes listed on their combined websites are completely made from new plastic. As much as 88% of the clothes listed have this ‘virgin’ plastic in them (mixed with other materials such as cotton). The analysis was conducted by the Royal society for the encouragement of arts, manufactures, and commerce (RSA) over a two-week period and looked at over 10,000 articles of clothing.

The synthetic materials found in clothes such as polyester, nylon, and spandex are created with fossil fuels. Despite being cheap, these materials have a huge impact on the environment, as they release large amounts of fossil fuel emissions when being created and frequently end up in landfills.