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What to take care of when buying cheap clothes? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 16 hours ago by Subject6051@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So, the wall was selling shirts for insanely cheap prices and I do not understand where they are making a profit.

I got a shirt which should cost 8 dollars for 2.5 and I don't know if I can just wear them without concern.

Are cheap shirts safe to wear? Idk do they use chemicals which are bad for me? They made this insanely cheap and I don't know what gives! It all says 100% cotton and its from a trusted brand but the mystery of the price still remains. I need to know before loading up on these things.

Also, bonus question, is white coloring agent more or less harmful than other colors? (Assume the most frequently used coloring agents)

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[–] Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 29 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

Labour... They save on labour. People that barely make enough to survive keep your prices low.

[–] theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works -4 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

If it's a shirt, there's not really labor involved outside transportation.

[–] rbn@sopuli.xyz 5 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

How exactly do you plant and harvest cotton, transform it into cloth and sew a shirt without labor? In agriculture as well as the textile industry we see horrible working conditions in Africa and Asia where this stuff is mostly manufactured.

[–] theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works -2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

We did in the 80s when you last were culture bombed about it. The textile industry is mostly in China now, and mostly automated, including cotton harvesting. Wool has some issues but animal cruelty tends not to register with you people, but poly blend clothing, which is by far the majority of clothing produced, has less human labor than most electronics manufacturing.

[–] rbn@sopuli.xyz 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

mostly automated, including cotton harvesting

Do you have a source for that? As per the last documentaries I saw on this topic, sweatshops are still a huge topic in the textile industry. 10 years ago there was a horrible accident in Bangladesh where more than 1000 people were killed and another 2500 injured after the building of a single textile factory collapsed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rana_Plaza_collapse

As per the sources I know, conditions might have slightly (!!!) improved since then but still miles away from acceptable.

More than 60 million people work in the textiles and garment industry across the world according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) – most of them in developing and emerging economies. Yet in many of these countries, production and working conditions fall short of internationally defined environmental and social standards.

https://www.bmz.de/en/issues/textiles-industry

Despite public outrage about substandard working conditions, the global garment and textile industry remains rife with cases of sweatshop conditions, union-busting, gender discrimination, and forced and child labour. Around the world, the rights and safety of garment workers are being systematically neglected.

https://www.somo.nl/our-work/sectors/garment-and-textiles/

Textile workers in underdeveloped countries face labor rights abuses, low pay, long hours, dangerous working conditions, and restricted access to healthcare and education. Gender discrimination is a significant issue, particularly for women.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-5341-3_19

Today, the textile sector is one of the largest economic sectors globally in terms of production amount, labor employment, and gross domestic product. At the same time, it is also one of the least sustainable sectors due to its profound negative environmental and social impacts

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15589250231220359

Also it's the first time that I hear that fashion is manufactured mostly in automated processes. I always heard that it's highly labor intensive because the styles permanently change, batches are small and complex designs still can't be automated in an economic way. As far as I know, there are no machines that can produce the numerous different models of shirts, trousers, backpacks, jackets, caps, dresses, skirts etc. that we see in fast fashion.

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