Sustainable fashion & thredUP – “Secondhand Clothes. Firsthand Fun” | Sabrina Didizian
We all hear that we should walk instead of drive when we can, turn off the lights, take shorter showers, and recycle when possible. However, the negative impact that the fashion industry (especially the fast fashion industry) has on our environment is only recently being highlighted. BUT, most people are still very unaware of this. We seem to have taken for granted that we can buy clothes that have been made cheaply and quickly at low prices. We seem to want to keep up with the ever-changing fashion trends, and stores want to produce and supply for that demand. But at what cost?
The growth of the multi-trillion dollar apparel industry has in more recent years been ‘fed’ by fast fashion. What used to take several months for a garment to reach a customer from the designer now takes sometimes just a couple of weeks. Even more, the number of fashion seasons has gone from two a year (spring/summer and autumn/winter) to as many as 50-100 microseasons. These fast-changing trends and low prices have therefore meant that people can and do consume more. In fact, “according to McKinsey & Company, the average consumer in 2014 purchased 60% more clothing compared to 2000, but each garment is kept half as long”.
With the loss in quality of garments, consumers have lost the ability to repair their clothes - the reduction in the cost of clothes has actually made it cheaper to buy a pair of socks than to darn them! This has resulted, paradoxically, in increased expenditure on lower-quality clothes. And although people think that they spend less money overall by buying from fast fashion stores instead of more expensive, higher-quality brands, it is actually the opposite. Not only have our over-indulgent buying habits caused us to become lazier, more demanding and have made us spend more overall on lower-quality clothes, but they have also contributed enormously to climate change and the deterioration of the health of our planet.
Serious water use and pollution take place during clothing production. “The world uses 5 trillion litres of water each year for fabric dyeing alone, enough to fill 2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools”. And according to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, “textile production produces 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas every year”, and the UN has estimated that “10% of total global emissions come from the fashion industry”. Unfortunately, the trend of buying and disposing is likely to continue. Consumers are now so used to that level of consumption that it would be so difficult for the microseason-shopper to stop, let alone reduce, their destructive buying habits.
People think that throwing away their clothes in the bin will have no effect; however, “disposed clothes also contribute to greenhouse gases as they sit in landfills”. Additionally, “only 15% of clothing is recycled or donated. Synthetic fibres, which make up at least 60% of our clothes, are non-biodegradable and sit in landfills for hundreds of years” and they also release microplastics into the water system when washing them.
There are some things that we can do; however, to help with this enormous issue on our hands. One thing we can do is to simply stop buying fast fashion. Another one is to just try and re-wear what we already have. I bet so many of us have so many clothes that are hidden somewhere in our closets and if we went through our closets every now and then, we’d definitely find some hidden gems that that we completely forgot about! We really don’t need to buy a new item for every occasion or every season, let alone microseason. Another thing we can do is commit to only buying clothes made of non-synthetic or sustainable materials like cotton, bamboo, hemp etc. Or, many companies are now making their clothing, or parts of their clothing lines, out of recycled plastic from the ocean or water bottles. One other way is thrifting, which I’m sure many of us are aware of because of how much cheaper it is. But not as many are aware of how much better clothes second-hand is for the environment. Buying second-hand gives clothes new life that they would not have been given and it creates less demand for creating new clothes, which no matter how sustainably made, producing something will always have some kind of impact on the planet.
One company that is making thrifting/second-hand shopping easier than ever is thredUP. It’s the largest online consignment and thrift store that has made it easier than ever to sell and buy second-hand clothing, jewellery, purses, shoes and accessories online. They sell and take items from brands like Lulu lemon, Gap and Zara to Diane Von Furstenberg and Michael Kors, all up to 90% off their retail price. They also have over 35,000 different brands to choose from. With regards to sustainability, on their website they state:
“It matters that we throw 26 billion pounds of clothing into global landfill every year. It matters that fashion will drain a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. It matters that a single T-shirt takes 700 gallons of water to produce. The choices we make matter. To our planet. To our kids.”
thredUP is on a mission to “inspire a new generation of shoppers to think second-hand first”. thredUP has actually “redistributed 65 million garments to date”. That’s a staggering statistic!!!
I chose to focus part of my blog post this week on thredUP because I see is as the future of what digital businesses and technologies should and will be like. Without the internet and technology, this concept would obviously not be able to exist, so I see thredUP as ahead of their time and a beacon of hope for using technology for creating positive change. We must all obviously initially change our mind-sets and spending/consumption habits and get over the scepticism towards second-hand purchasing. Why buy something new when it already exists, and you can buy it for a fraction of the price!? Once we get over this hump and change our perspective, it really will open a whole new world when it comes to feeding our desire for more in one of the most sustainable ways possible in a modern world.
https://www.wri.org/blog/2017/07/apparel-industrys-environmental-impact-6-graphics
https://hellohomestead.com/the-impact-of-textiles-and-clothing-industry-on-the-environment/
pixelskylines
dededos
jbbartram-illu
stormborns
janainaart
gummygunk
discoholicmusic