Maxine Bedat wants New York State to regulate the fashion industry

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In the year In 2019, Maxine Bedat crashed into a mountainous, charred landfill site outside of Accra, Ghana, as it spewed toxic fumes. It was filled with foreign label clothing and accessories — a clear example of the billions of pounds of used clothing the U.S. exports each year as Americans purge their endlessly overflowing closets. Bedat wrote in her book. Unsolved.

Published last summer and widely reviewed, Unsolved Following the global trend of a pair of jeans from the fields where cotton is grown, to the global factories where it is produced and finally to disposal, it shows the intimate and massive ways in which the clothing industry is being reshaped. the world. “We can hear facts. But our psychology works with history,” says Bedat. Former lawyer, fashion entrepreneur (she founded the now-defunct Zadin brand) and company founder The three-year-old New Standards Institute (NSI), a non-profit organization working to improve the fashion industry.

But she didn’t just stop at print. Unsolved. In February, NSI worked with a pair of New York state legislators to introduce the Fashion Sustainability and Social Responsibility Act (or the Fashion Act) that would require footwear and apparel companies with more than $100 million in revenue to map out at least half. Identify supply chains and where the biggest social and environmental impacts are – and reduce their emissions to comply with the Paris Agreement.

If passed when New York lawmakers reconvene next year, the Fashion Act would put New York at the forefront of efforts to bring much-needed accountability to the fashion industry. Meanwhile, legislators from other states have reached out to NSI to investigate how similar legislation would work in their states.

For bidat, the book and the rules go hand in hand: one illuminates the issue and the other moves people to action. “We’ve been trained to see ourselves as consumers,” she said. But we, the citizens, are the ones who can change the laws.



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