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Why you should stop buying new clothes

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Alana James, Northumbria University, Newcastle The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, producing 20% of global wastewater and 10% of global carbon emissions – and it’s estimated that by 2050 this will have increased to 25% . A staggering 300,000 tonnes of clothes are sent to British landfills each year. The fast fashion business model, first developed in the early 2000s is responsible for the increase in consumer demand for high quantities of low-quality clothing. Many fashion products now being designed and made specifically for short-term ownership and premature disposal. Clothing quality is decreasing along with costs, and the increased consumption levels of mass-manufactured fashion products are pushing up the consumption of natural resources. The pressure to facilitate consumer hunger imposes significant social and environmental pressures on the manufacturing supply chain. The UK’s consumption levels of fashion are the highest...
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Parliament’s security experts slate British government pandemic planning

  For the past few months, a British group has campaigned for an emergency judge-led inquiry into the pandemic.   Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK   has not got very far: nothing has been offered beyond the promise of an inquiry at some time in the future. Now, though, a parliamentary report has been published which goes some way towards that aim. It comes from the rather grandly named Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy and is called ‘ Biosecurity and National Security ’. Because of its focus, the committee concentrates on the government’s preparedness for a pandemic, so it says little about the detailed handling, including the  outsourcing ,  creeping privatisation ,  chumocracy  and all the other criticisms, but it is still a remarkable document on two counts. The first is summarised in Friday’s 18th of December press release announcing the publication of the report, which was headed ‘ Government failed to act on its security ...
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We mapped out food poverty across England, to see where food banks are needed most

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   Dianna Smith, University of Southampton and Claire Thompson, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Statistics from food banks across England show a frightening rise in the number of people using their services, meaning that more and more people don’t have enough money to feed themselves. Between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017, the Trussell Trust provided 1,182,954 three-day emergency food packages – up 73,645 from the previous year. People affected by food poverty face severe threats to their health and well-being. As well as the stress, depression and anxiety that can result from not having enough money to feed their families, people experiencing food poverty also face a higher risk of obesity , because the only foods they can afford tend to be cheap, sugary, processed and fattening. Some researchers have already mapped out who is using food banks, which is a big step towards understanding the problem. But academics like ourselves are i...
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