A customer goes into a store in the United States that is popular for trendy and cheap clothes — known as “fast fashion” — for an impulsive wardrobe addition.

The person buying those clothes may be planning to keep them for only a short time, and then throwing them out when a new fashion trend arrives.

Fast fashion refers to the mass-produced and low-cost clothing items that manufacturers churn out by the millions each day, especially in China, but also in countries such as India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Turkey.

But what most people don’t realize is that most of the clothes are made from materials that are bad for the environment and end up in landfills.

“Fast fashion has huge implications for the environment,” said Eliot Metzger, director of sustainable business and innovation at the World Resources Institute in Washington. “Not many people realize how much water and energy it takes to create a T-shirt. And if that T-shirt is going to the landfill, replaced by another T-shirt, that is going to multiply what is already an unsustainable pattern.”

Global issue

Fast fashion is not only a problem in the United States but in poorer countries where donated clothes arrive and are then resold by vendors.

“Kenya and Ghana import quite a lot of fast fashion clothing that is causing a huge amount of pollution,” explained Erica Cirino, communications manager for the Plastic Pollution Coalition in Washington. “The landfills are so overwhelmed by textile waste that they begin flowing into the surrounding waterways.

From stylish to disastrous

When retailers first introduced fast fashion apparel in the 1990s, the inexpensive and trendy clothing appealed to consumers. Today, its omnipresence in stores and on the internet in the U.S. and other wealthy countries, has made the fast fashion industry a disaster for the environment.

The clothes are often made from synthetic plastic fabrics, such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, which are produced from petroleum-based products — fossil fuels that are causing global warming.

“The heavy reliance by brands on polyester, nylon, acrylic is only increasing,” said Cirino, “so a great majority of clothing today is made out of plastic that is much less expensive than natural materials.”

Researchers have found microfibers from clothing in a wide range of land and aquatic ecosystems — from mountains to ocean floors.

“We call this a global microplastic cycle, where tiny microfibers and other microplastics can move thousands of miles from urban areas, where there are tons of people wearing synthetic clothing, to the most remote corners of the planet, including the top of Mount Everest,” said Britta Baechler, associate director of oceans plastics research with the Ocean Conservancy in Portland, Oregon.

Each year, approximately 6.5 million metric tons of microfibers are released into the environment worldwide, according to the Journal of Hazardous Materials. That’s equivalent to more than 32 billion T-shirts.

“As you’re walking, the material is rubbing together and that that causes fibers to break loose that shed directly into the air and make their way into the waterways,” Baechler told VOA.

Microfibers in washing machines

However, experts say, the biggest source of environmental microfiber is washing machines in the U.S. that do not have filters to catch the tiny fibers.

Wastewater treatment plants filter out the majority of microfibers, but because they are so small, some still get into the waterways. They harm small aquatic organisms that ingest them by creating blockages that hinder their absorption of nutrients from food.

It is not yet clear what the effect of microfibers is on humans.

“When we wear this clothing, we’re inhaling and potentially absorbing these plastic particles and their toxic chemical additives through our skin, so we’re exposed at all times,” said Cirino.

Unlike some materials, there is currently no widespread system for recycling textiles.

There are facilities to recycle paper, glass and some plastics, there isn’t an easy way to recycle textiles by shredding them and making them into new textiles, explained Swarupa Ganguli, lead environmental protection specialist in the office of land and emergency management for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Fashionable options

Instead of buying fast fashions, environmental groups say people should think about purchasing clothes at second-hand shops or on the internet and rent outfits for special occasions.

The Patagonia outdoor clothing and gear company in Ventura, California, has a program called Worn Wear to try to keep its clothes out of landfills. The company rebuys some of its used clothing, which is cleaned and resold.

“Worn Wear is based on the premise that reducing the environmental impact of our products must be a shared responsibility between Patagonia and our customers,” said Corey Simpson, the communications manager for product and sport community. “We want to help you with responsible product care while you’re using your gear, and we want to buy it back from you when you no longer need it, whether it can be passed on to someone new or recycled into something new.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency favors what is being called a circular economy approach. This includes redesigning clothes and encouraging the reuse and recycling of clothing.

“The idea is to shift the consumer mindset from using clothing quickly and then throwing it away, and instead to reuse, reduce and recirculate it back into the economy,” Ganguli told VOA.

While “the circular economy for textiles has huge potential,” said Metzger with the World Resources Institute, “I don’t think you can say it is working until the circular economy for textiles is slowing and reversing the consumption.”
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump continues to defy expectations as he surges ahead of other Republican contenders for the presidential nomination despite multiple indictments against him — and with words of support from some of his own rivals. As he was indicted again Tuesday over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, VOA’s Anita Powell looks at the unprecedented path of the former president.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will chair a high-level meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that will highlight global food insecurity and the conflicts that worsen it.

“We know this for sure: Where there is conflict, there is hunger,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters at a news conference Tuesday to kick off Washington’s Security Council presidency this month.

She said Blinken will have “announcements and deliverables” on Thursday, and she urged nations to sign on to a draft communiqué Washington plans to issue on the subject.

Thomas-Greenfield, who has been the U.S. envoy at the United Nations since February 2021, said she will again use the rotating council presidency to push global food insecurity to the top of the council’s agenda. She has helmed the 15-nation council twice before on behalf of the United States, and both times focused on the issue.

The annual state of food security report released last month by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization found that the world is still recovering from economic setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic and coping with fallout of the war in Ukraine on food and energy markets.

The FAO estimates that 691 million to 783 million people in the world faced hunger in 2022, significantly higher than in 2019 before the pandemic. Much of that hunger was at the regional level, with Africa, the Caribbean and Western Asia all seeing rising hunger levels.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned when Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative on July 17 that its decision would “strike a blow to people in need everywhere.”

Experts agreed, saying the deal’s collapse would negatively affect the prices of commodities such as wheat, corn and soybeans, ultimately hurting poorer consumers.

The U.N. has so far been unsuccessful in getting Moscow to reverse its decision.

Thomas-Greenfield said Washington has seen indications that Russia might be interested in talks.

“What we have been told is that they are prepared to return to discussions,” she said. “We haven’t seen any evidence of that yet.”

She said if the Russians want to get their fertilizer to global markets and continue to have some access to international financial transactions, they will have to return to the deal.

Thomas-Greenfield said Washington would continue to highlight Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine during its August presidency. It plans a meeting to discuss the protection of civilians in Ukraine, including children, on August 24 — Ukraine’s independence day.

Russia’s deputy ambassador told reporters Tuesday that Moscow objected to the council scheduling any meetings on Ukraine this month. Thomas-Greenfield said that was “a little stunt” and would not stop the U.S. from conducting the council’s business.

Human rights

The U.S. envoy says human rights guide the Biden administration’s foreign policy and will also be a priority during the U.S. presidency in the form of invitations to civil society representatives and human rights organizations to brief the council on relevant topics.

Some council members have opposed the idea of bringing human rights issues into the council, saying there are other U.N. forums such as the Human Rights Council, where such issues should be discussed. Thomas-Greenfield disagrees.

“Human rights belong in the Security Council, because human rights are about peace and security,” she said. “Places where human rights are being violated, we see situations of peace and security being destabilized.”
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The United States has formally invited China’s newly reappointed foreign minister, Wang Yi, to Washington, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said on Tuesday, after Wang’s predecessor was abruptly removed from his post by Beijing. 

China reappointed veteran diplomat Wang as foreign minister last week, replacing former rising star Qin Gang, who has not been seen for more than month — a mysterious absence after just seven months in the job that has raised questions about transparency. 

The ministry has only said Qin was off work for unspecified health reasons. 

The invitation was extended on Monday during a meeting at the State Department between U.S. Assistant Secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and Yang Tao, director-general of the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs at China’s Foreign Ministry, Miller said in a news briefing. 

“In the meeting yesterday, we extended the invitation that had previously been made to Foreign Minister Qin Gang and made clear that invitation did transfer over,” Miller said. 

He did not say if the Chinese side had accepted the invitation but added that this was Washington’s expectation. 

“We certainly expect that it is something that they would accept and is a trip that we expect to happen, but we have not yet scheduled a date,” Miller said. 

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment when asked about the invitation. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Qin on June 18, on the first visit by America’s top diplomat to China in five years. The U.S. State Department said then they held “candid, substantive and constructive” talks, and Blinken invited Qin to Washington to continue discussions. 

Qin, 57, a former aide to President Xi Jinping and envoy to the United States, took over the ministry in December but has not been seen in public since June 25 when he met visiting diplomats in Beijing. 

The Foreign Ministry’s brief explanation that this was due to health reasons was later excised from official transcripts. 

Qin’s successor, Wang, 69, was also his predecessor, holding the post from 2013-2022 as ties frayed with rival superpower the United States to a point Beijing described as an all-time low. 

Blinken subsequently met Wang on the sidelines of a regional meeting in Jakarta in Qin’s absence.
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Efforts to help Haitians survive the gang violence ravaged their nation suffered a new blow with the kidnapping of an American nurse from New Hampshire and her young daughter, who remained missing Tuesday.

Haiti’s gangs have grown in power since the July 7, 2021, assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and are now estimated to control up to 80% of the capital. Hundreds of people have been reported kidnapped since January, a significant uptick from previous years. The surge in killings, rapes and kidnappings has led to a violent uprising by civilian vigilante groups.

About 200 Haitians had marched in their nation’s capital to show their anger over the abduction of Alix Dorsainvil, who was working for nonprofit Christian ministry El Roi Haiti when she and the girl were seized Thursday. The kidnapped woman is the wife of El Roi Haiti’s founder Sandro Dorsainvil.

Nonprofit groups are often the only institutions in Haiti’s lawless areas and the deepening violence has forced many to close, leaving thousands of vulnerable families without access to basic services like health care or education.

Doctors Without Borders announced this month that it was suspending services in one of its hospitals because some 20 armed men burst into an operating room and snatched a patient.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that Alix Dorsainvil was working in the small brick clinic late last week when armed men burst in and seized her. Lormina Louima, who was waiting for a check-up, said one man pulled out his gun and told her to relax.

“When I saw the gun, I was so scared,” Louima said. “I said, ‘I don’t want to see this, let me go.’”

Some members of the community said the unidentified men had asked for $1 million ransom, a standard practice of the gangs killing and sowing terror in Haiti’s impoverished populace. Hundreds of kidnappings have occurred in the country this year alone, figures from the local nonprofit Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights show.

The same day Dorsainvil and her daughter were taken, the U.S. State Department advised Americans to avoid travel to Haiti and ordered nonemergency personnel to leave, citing widespread kidnappings that regularly target U.S. citizens. 

Kenya’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it had offered 1,000 police to help train and assist the Haitian National Police “restore normalcy in the country and protect strategic installations.”

Most Haitians say they simply want to live in peace.

Protesters, largely from the area around El Roi Haiti’s campus, which includes a medical clinic, a school and more, echoed that call Monday as they walked through the sweltering streets wielding cardboard signs written in Creole in red paint.

“She is doing good work in the community, free her,” read one.

Jean Ronald said his community has significantly benefitted from the care provided by El Roi Haiti.

As the protesters walked through the area where Dorsainvil was taken, the streets were eerily quiet. The doors to the clinic where she worked were shut, the small brick building empty. Ronald and others in the area worried the latest kidnapping may mean the clinic won’t reopen.

“If they leave, everything [the aid group’s programs] will shut down,” Ronald worried. “The money they are asking for, we don’t have it.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller wouldn’t say Monday if the abductors had made demands, and he did or answer other questions.

“Obviously, the safety and security of American citizens overseas is our highest priority. We are in regular contact with the Haitian authorities. We’ll continue to work with them and our US government interagency partners, but because it’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation, there’s not more detail I can offer,” Miller wrote in a statement Monday.

In a video for the El Roi Haiti website, Alix Dorsainvil describes Haitians as “full of joy, and life and love” and people she was blessed to know.

Dorsainvil graduated from Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts, which has a program to support nursing education in Haiti. Dorsainvil’s father, Steven Comeau, who was reached in New Hampshire, said he could not talk.

In a blog post Monday, El Roi Haiti said Alix Dorsainvil fell in love with Haiti’s people on a visit after the devastating 2010 earthquake. It said the organization was working with authorities in both countries to free her and her daughter.

“Please continue to pray with us for the protection and freedom of Alix and her daughter. As our hearts break for this situation, we also continue to pray for the country and people of Haiti and for freedom from the suffering they endure daily.”
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The commission that enforces U.S. election rules will not be regulating AI-generated deepfakes in political advertising ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Deana Mitchell has our story.
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