Zabala 1

Jose Zabala
Professor Ferrara
English 101
November 16,2021

Rhetorical Analysis

Pollution and waste have been a problem for a long time. We are always trying to find

ways to reduce this for a better tomorrow. One of the biggest contributors to our waste problem

and pollution would be the fashion industry. Around 13 million tons of cloth in the United States

alone end up in landfills. The fashion industry is one of the biggest in the world, and its always

changing. From the materials to the styles of cloth being designed, its constantly evolving as well

as the methods in the creative process to bring cloth to life. What if they would try to change

their practices a little bit more in order to make strides for a better planet. Amit Karla the speaker

of the ted talk uses a friendly but formal tone to past down 3 creative ways to fix fashions waste

problem by making cloth recyclable, compostable, and changing the methods in which we dye

our cloth. He goes into details in the talk with facts and opinions to move the conversation

forward through his personal experiences and research.

As Karla would try to find ways to stay stylish in the most cost affection way, he would

go down to his local thrift store in search of secondhand gems. He equipped himself with a

swooning machine in order to tailor his cloth to be as unique as possible. As he would do this he

also asked himself what would happen to all the cloth that didn’t sell or weren’t deem cool

enough to buy? Seeing as a lot of cloth would sit at the store for a long time or wouldn’t sell at

all. He did some research and discovered some alarming facts as he alluded to on the ted talk

showed that only a small percentage of cloth disposed each year in the united states would end
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up in thrift stores, while the majority would end up in landfills. With an optimistic tone Amit

suggest a way to reduce pollution by the fashion industry would be by making cloth to be

recyclable at the end of its life. He gave a great example with a leather jacket demonstrating how

you can take the jacket apart instead of people just throwing close away once they are done with

them.

As innovative as the fashion industry is with its designs and not ruin with the status quo,

it still lacks ethical progress by not designing cloth that would be beneficial to our environment.

if they would do so this would in fact cut down waste drastically. Now the fashion industry sits

second in pollution and waste only behind the oil and gas company. They are not all to blame

because us as the consumer we play a roll in the problem as well. By extending the life of our

cloth by an extra 9 month would reduce the water and waste impact by 20-30 percent. Of course,

I don’t expect you to wear cloth forever as environmentally friendly as you would want to be its

still a better way to solve this as Amit said on the talk. If the fashion industry would make cloth

more compostable. All they would need to do is shift their resources to use and grow more

natural fibers like 100% organic cotton. This would make the cloth get broken down to the fabric

and be able to be reused to make new cloth.

Recycling and composting are two critical priorities in reducing waste and pollution by

the fashion industry, but one of the other things we must consider is the way we dye our cloth as

Amit shares with the audience. Introducing different ways would make a change seeing as at

least 10-20% of the chemical dye we use to dye our clothes end up in large bodies of water that

neighbor developing countries. Even though the chemicals work great at preserving the color in

our cloth, we can get some of the same affects of coloring by using stuff that we all have in our

kitchen cabinets like spices and herbs. It may not be as affective, and the color would go away
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after a certain time, but this would give your cloth a more unique style and would be better for

the environment. at the end of the day that’s what fashion is all about for the consumer is to

create your own style that separates you from everybody else.

As Amit came to a closing of his talk he definitely said something that stuck with me.

His final thoughts were simple and straight to the point. There’s no fix all or no one step

solution. But we can get started on these problems by designing clothes with their death in mind.

The fashion industry is the perfect industry to experiment with and embrace change. These

changes may one day get us to the sustainable future we so desperately need. We all have a hand

in this problem, and working for a better tomorrow is the key.