Industry
With the consumption-driven capitalist system in the driver's seat, demand for manufactured products has risen inexorably. Globalization has been instrumental in promoting uninhibited consumption by forging a geographical disconnect between people and the long-term impacts of their consumption patterns.
Production sites shifted thousands of kilometers away, often to Asia, which emerged as the world's factory. Far from sight from Western customers, the continent has shouldered the cost of environmentally intensive supply chains. But Asia is the most populous consumerist market, and the costs of consumerism, including external costs, is evolving into an intra-Asia matter.
The following are excerpts from reports conducted on industrial production in Asia.
All images © Sebastian Castelier
The Toxic Price of Fast Fashion
Bangladesh 🇧🇩 - The Hazaribagh district of Dhaka is one of the fashion industry's dirty backstage. It was one of the world's most polluted area at the time of reporting in 2015, home to 95% of Bangladesh's tanneries. Every day, Hazaribagh dumps 22,000 cubic litres of toxic waste into a river to avoid bearing the cost of treating wastewater, which contain a cocktail of chemicals.
The fashion industry, most notably fast fashion, has outsourced pollution to countries offering lax environmental regulations, such as Bangladesh. The South Asian nation exported over $1 billion of leather and leather goods in 2014, including to Japan, Europe and North America. Beyond leather accessories, the societal embrace of fast fashion - a flow of new styles at low prices - has driven annual clothing production to 100 billion units. This has transformed fashion items into disposable goods, and garment lifespan fell by 36% between 2000 and 2015.
Houses Built on Coal, Degraded Farmland
Nepal🇳🇵/ India 🇮🇳 - The production of clay bricks across South Asia in traditional coal-fired brick kilns is fueled by the region's rapid population growth and increasing preference for single-family homes in low-density suburbs. But bricks manufacturing comes at steep environmental cost. South Asia's brick kilns are mostly coal-fired, releasing CO2 emissions that are equivalent to those of the entire passenger car fleet in the United States.
Beyond their emissions of Earth-warming gases, brick kilns degrade soils as they release pollutants, including heavy metals. It is estimated to cause a 40 to 80% drop in crop yield. In addition, the brick industry preys on arable lands, buying from farmers agricultural topsoils that are rich in soil nutrients. Once excavated, farmlands stripped of their uppermost outer layer take up to a decade to return to their previous fertility. Though illegal, the practice is widespread across the region.
