SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING

PART 4

This week’s article is the fourth and final section of the Sustainable Shopping series, from Mitchelstown teenager Amy O’Brien.

As a little recap on what I’ve written about over the past few weeks; Part 1) I explained why sustainable fashion is even important by firstly delving into the problem, namely fast fashion; Part 2) I covered what I consider the most sustainable practise when it comes to your clothes – re-wearing; and Part 3) I gave you advice on how to shop sustainably when you do still want to go and buy new clothes.

In Part 4 this week, I’ll be talking about how we care for and throw away our clothes!

Got it!

Let’s take a well-known example to start with - H&M are a fast fashion clothing brand that I’m sure most of you reading this have heard of and probably shopped from. H&M has accumulated $4.3 billion worth of unsold clothes, much of which they were accused of destroying. They have failed to fulfil a pledge to ensure their garment workers are even paid a fair living wage and produce 3 billion (largely plastic-based filled) items per year. This is the same company that have ‘ conscious’ collections and how they’re going to become ‘climate positive’ by 2040.

This is simply greenwashing, defined as a marketing technique used by companies to give the impression that their products, practices and policies are more environmentally-friendly than they actually are. No business that produces this much, can be sustainable.

We’ve looked at how exploitative the fast fashion industry really is, from exacerbating gender inequality to fuelling the climate crisis.

On top of all that, when each of us finally get clothes touched by many mistreated hands and covered in carbon emissions… they aren’t made to last. Instead, the quality is so poor that most of us are likely to throw it away after a couple of wears and washes. Then, we look to replace it and once again, buy into this harmful industry.

Fast fashion is more than just the items we now buy, fast fashion has grown into a mindset. It is a way of thinking that is telling us that last month’s dress is today’s rubbish. It’s turned clothes, a basic necessity, into something that is disposable.

The fabulous news is that, even with your fast fashion wardrobe at home, you can change to a ‘slow’ mindset.

Whether you bought your jeans from a sustainable online shop, a second hand charity shop in Mitchelstown, for instance, or from a fast fashion brand, try giving those jeans the longest life possible! Wear them over and over again, then repair them when you need to, style them different ways so you don’t grow fed up with them.

However, if you do fancy a change, swap your jeans with a friend, give them to someone else you know who will wear them and who will give them another lease of life and please, don’t throw them in the bin where they will simply end up polluting the earth and disrupting poorer communities in other areas of the world, in landfill!

Remember, waste isn’t waste until we waste it.

I hope you have enjoyed and learned from my 4-part Sustainable Fashion series.

In my opinion, we need to value the clothes we wear again and treat each garment with respect, this is an action that can start with all of you.