About Our
Organization
We are a high school environmental NGO committed to ending the exploitation behind fast fashion. Our mission is to amplify the voices of garment workers, especially women and children, who endure unsafe conditions, poverty wages, and modern-day slavery to produce clothes for the global market. These workers are too often invisible in the global supply chain, trapped in cycles of abuse with little to no labor protections. Through awareness campaigns, survivor storytelling, and our multi-media releases, we push for ethical labor laws, corporate accountability, and sustainable alternatives. We believe fashion should never come at the cost of human lives, and that informed, compassionate consumers have the power to drive change.
Our Mission
Our goal at thread lightly is to mitigate the mass consumerism of fast fashion within the United States of America. We are striving to create a community aware of the detrimental effects burdened upon marginalized communities by fast fashion. Part of our awareness journey is to encourage a boycott on fast fashion consumption. Our campaign will cut down the exportation of fast fashion good ultimately leading to the cut down of goods produced and reduced (environmental impact). By enforcement by regulators and a shift in consumer behavior away from choosing the cheapest product we can cut down on the fast fashion textile industry’s toxic pollution emissions. Chemical and engineering news showed that this is possible with how major chemical companies as well as startups created a similar movement by developing less harmful textile processing chemicals to push a movement for cleaner textile production. We will determine our campaign’s success by tracking the activity of people visiting our website as well as the incoming donations. Also, the number of viewers and engagement received on our social media account will be a crucial part in tracking our success with our movement.
Our Organization
Our journey at Thread Lightly started with a strong concern for the environment and the long-term effects of fast fashion. At 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the fashion industry is one of the worst polluters in the world. That exceeds the total emissions from maritime and aviation combined. We are concentrating on Java, Indonesia because it is a significant textile production region with a startlingly high environmental cost. The fast fashion sector poses serious problems for the island of Java. The Citarum River is one of the most polluted rivers in the world, and textile mills release untreated chemical waste into it (Mearns, 2021). In addition to destroying aquatic ecosystems, this pollution has an adverse effect on the health of nearby communities that depend on these water supplies for agriculture, fishing, and drinking. Fast fashion is an example of "slow violence," a term used to characterize harm done to vulnerable groups over time. Communities in Java are disproportionately affected by the environmental damage brought on by chemical pollution and textile waste. By bringing attention to the hidden effects of rapid fashion, our media campaign aims to solve these societal issues.
10%
of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by fast fashion emissions. That exceeds the total emissions from maritime and aviation combined
100 billion
items of clothing are produced each year out of which 92 million tonnes of textile waste is discarded
60%
of clothes are made with plastic-based materials out of which half a million tons reach the ocean each year
93 billion
cubic meters of water are used each year in the fashion industry, and left over water is contaminated by toxic chemicals which gets sent into our oceans