Ethical issues:
· Fair Trade
· Carbon Footprint
· Textile Technology
· Global Warming
· Organic Textiles
· Child Labour
· Working Conditions
· Animal Welfare
· Air miles of clothing
· Workers rights and pay
Did you know?
· 80 billion garments are produced every year
· 2 million tones of garments are thrown away each year
· 840 million garments are produced each year by Zara/Index
· Bangladesh is a significant producer
Bangladesh Rana Plaza Disaster
On the 23rd of April 2013 in Bangladesh on the outskirt of the capital city Dhaka. An 8 storey garment factory collapsed. The building comprised of 5 different clothing factories. This disaster resulted to 1,134 deaths and injuries left to over 2,500 people.
So what caused the Rana Plaza disaster to occur?
The building was built on very marshy unstable ground meaning that the building was a hazard anyway. Also construction of the building was poor meaning that it could easily collapse. Adding to this, the building was illegally extended to eight storeys high, there was only permission for a five storey building but the owner of the building (Sohel Rana) extended to another three storeys, causing the building to be extremely unstable and dangerous.
The day before the disaster, huge cracks were found along the walls of the building, however, the authorities took no precaution steps and their answer was “ its nothing serious” and told the workers to come in the next day to continue working. Nevertheless the following day the building collapsed.
If Sohel Rana was to have followed the ETI base code it could have prevented a huge building from collapsing and 1,134 people from dying. This terrible disaster highlights the importance of following the ETI base code.