The environmentalist’s new clothes

Rebecca
Rebecca
Nov 7 · 3 min read

With the prevalence of fast fashion, a majority of us long gave little thought to where our clothes came from and even less to what happened to them once we were done wearing them. In recent years however, awareness has grown of the environmental and social impact of our voracious appetite for the latest trends.

As I spend most of my time working on and thinking about sustainability, I try to be as environmentally conscious as possible in my daily choices. For the sustainability- conscious shopper however, it does often tend to feel like the odds are constantly stacked against you. Navigating all the information (when it is even available) on supply chains, origin or composition of items takes time and patience — nor does it always lead to finding fully sustainable options. In addition, everything around us pushes us to consume more and more — advertisements, whether direct or subliminal, social media, not to mention social expectations and pressure. This has a massive impact on the people working in industries like the fashion industry as well as on the environment. The first step, therefore, has to be to ask — do I really need to buy this?

Up until recently, fashion was a glaring blind spot in my quest for more sustainable and responsible consumption. I knew that the social and environmental impacts of overconsumption were bad — but confronting those seemed too daunting, and the alternatives to fast fashion seemed inaccessible or even inexistent. The trigger to finally confronting this was a recent house move. Whilst packing up all my clothes, I found myself looking through items I hadn’t worn in years, or completely forgotten I owned — a familiar refrain for many I imagine. I didn’t want to be carrying all of these unworn clothes to my new home, and so I started to think about the options available.

The easiest option is always just to throw old clothes in the bin, and never think of them again. But knowing that this meant the incinerator, my conscience nagged at me not to do this — especially not for clothes which were still in perfectly fine condition! Option b was to drop them off at a clothing donation point, to be sold on in charity shops. This is an efficient way of getting rid of lots of unwanted clothes, which I’ve occasionally made use of. But while I don’t mean to disparage it, not knowing exactly what happened to these clothes after they were dropped off in the container — whether they would be worn again, shipped off far away or still finally end up in an incinerator — played on my mind. This led me to envisaging more direct recycling options, such as clothing exchanges or reselling (for a small price — the greater advantage being the knowledge that somebody is wearing and enjoying what I no longer could).

Over the next couple of years, I will be exploring these different options for reusing and recycling unwanted clothes — exploring what the best options are with my friends and colleagues. I plan to first of all, reduce to an absolute minimum necessity the amount of new clothes I buy; set up an account on a second hand clothes website to sell on items in good condition I no longer use; organise clothing exchanges with my friends and colleagues, with the aim of encouraging them to also consider their clothing footprint; and finally, approach one or two local stores to find out what they are doing to encourage more sustainable behaviour and make the case for them to increase their action. I will also explore what impact these initiatives truly have.

Rebecca

Rebecca

Student at CISL blogging about sustainability and responsible consumption

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