In our society, lots of new things are being made cheap and quickly every second of the day. They are made out of plastic, being imported into wealthier countries, and they don't tend to last. Instead of participating in fast fashion, people should try going to thrift stores and buying used clothes or items. Thrifting is also typically much cheaper than buying brand new items. You may even find products which are made with higher quality fabrics. If you grow out of your clothes you should donate them to thrift stores, reuse the fabric for something else, or try making a Tshirt no sew reusable bag.

I like your opinion and I completely agree with you. More and more clothes are bought every day and I think too many clothes are thrown away. Some stores recycle used/old clothes but not enough. I think influencers could contribute to solving this problem because they have a great influence on young people. Some of my friends also use the app to sell things at low prices. I think it's good for both people and the environment.

I totally agree with you. Fast fashion has done so much harm to the environment, and the items being produced are cheaply made and often break down after a short period of time. I’ve started thrifting a lot and can honestly say that it is much better than buying fast fashion. Many of the things I find are even vintage and the quality of the clothing is built to last a long time. Additionally, the clothes are being reused instead of being dumped. I am proud to say that a large amount of my wardrobe has been thrifted instead of bought brand new. Also, I crochet accessories for myself instead of buying them, like beanies, bags, and leg warmers. By crocheting, I am paying much less for items than what I would pay for if I bought them brand new from a fast fashion brand. It’s also very rewarding to be able to say that I made an item by hand. I think buying clothes and accessories secondhand or even making them yourself is a great alternative to fast fashion and a great way to reduce waste and pollution.

I agree with you that thrifting and crafting are great ways to be more sustainable. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) states that over 11 million tons of textile waste were thrown away in the U.S. in 2018, which is really concerning. Thrifting can help make a change by giving clothes a second chance rather than tossing them in the landfills. From my own experience, I've been able to find some very nice clothes while thrifting and sometimes the quality is way better than fast fashion. Also Fast fashion is cheap and does not last long. Lastly, I like the idea of reusing old clothes to make things like reusable bags or other crafts. It's a creative way to repurpose old clothes instead of throwing them out.

I completely agree with you. The cycle of fast fashion and constant consumption is not only harmful to the environment but also encourages a throwaway mindset where individuals will waste clothing that someone else could've used. I also agree that thrifting is such a great alternative — it helps reduce waste, supports sustainability, and often leads to finding unique, high-quality items that you can't get in regular stores. I also love your idea about reusing fabric, it’s eco-friendly, and a great way to give old clothes new life. In addition, I wonder if there are any companies that already use old fabric to create new clothes.

I see your point, Nina. Thrifting and upcycling things not only conserve waste but also give us the chance to find high-quality pieces. Thrifting has a big affect in reducing waste. I also like the idea of making reusable bags out of discarded shirts. Have you ever tried making other things from thrift shopping items?

Throwing away old clothes is a wasteful problem many people participate in. All those old, used, even new clothes that people throw out, get incinerated and used as fuel that pollutes the environment and hurts the earth. I read an article from NLST and RTS all relating to recycling clothes, and it mentioned how 85% of people toss away old clothes to be burned and to eventually damage the environment, when there are many more simpler and resourceful solutions. Rather than throwing away clothes, people can donate them or sell them to other people. The main solution of recycling clothes is giving them to thrift stores so they can resell it and it can make someone else happy. In the articles I read, 15% of people reuse/recycle their clothes either giving them away to people, stores or reusing them to make new and trendy clothes. My mom and I always donate my old clothes to charity or clothing drives to help other families that need clothes. We used to give them to my cousins but they have outgrown them so we donate them and see other families happy and safer with new clothes. It gives them a chance to be cared for, warm, and stylish.

Throwing away old clothes is a wasteful problem many people participate in. All those old, used, even new clothes that people throw out, get incinerated and used as fuel that pollutes the environment and hurts the earth. I read an article from NLST and RTS all relating to recycling clothes, and it mentioned how 85% of people toss away old clothes to be burned and to eventually damage the environment, when there are many more simpler and resourceful solutions. Rather than throwing away clothes, people can donate them or sell them to other people. The main solution of recycling clothes is giving them to thrift stores so they can resell it and it can make someone else happy. In the articles I read, 15% of people reuse/recycle their clothes either giving them away to people, stores or reusing them to make new and trendy clothes. My mom and I always donate my old clothes to charity or clothing drives to help other families that need clothes. We used to give them to my cousins but they have outgrown them so we donate them and see other families happy and safer with new clothes. It gives them a chance to be cared for, warm, and stylish.

People all over the world don't realize that jeans that you buy take 1000 Gallons of water to make one pair of jeans. As humans, we drink 1/2 a gallon a day. One pair of jeans is the equivalent to 2000 people having enough water to drink for the day. When we throw away jeans, we waste that good denim material that we can use for future use. For example, in the article "Denim Insulation Review: Comparison Guide and Pros and Cons", I learned that if we use jeans that we throw away as insulation, we can save so much material on making the insulation that is commonly used, it's terrible for the environment! It can add up to 26 million Tons of CO2 emissions a year! If we started reusing jeans that we buy, we would help the environment a lot. I used this in my daily life after we remade our garage, we thrifted old jeans and used the denim from the jeans to insulate our walls and keep us warm throughout the winter. Cutting waste in material needs to be focused on more.

One easy and cost effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is by using reusable shopping bags instead of plastic ones. Plastic bags are made from petroleum, and they take hundreds of years to break down in landfills. The Environmental Protection Agency (2021) reports that Americans use around 100 billion plastic bags every year, and less than 10% are recycled. By switching to reusable bags, you can reduce waste and help lower the demand for plastic production. Consumers are the source, when we stop buying there is no demand, which means no market for plastic bags. Me and my family started using reusable bags when we go shopping, and it’s such an easy change, all we do is leave the reusable bags in the trunk so if we need them they are handy and putting them away is easy. Not only does it help the environment, but it also saves money because some stores even charge extra for plastic bags. Once you change to reusable bags, it't something that is just a small change that can make a huge difference in our carbon footprint, something that doing it for a week will feel like an unconcious act

Fast fashion is one of the issues in our society that isn't addressed properly. By buying fast fashion and following micro-trends, we not only further encourage child labor and such, but we also contribute to an extremely large portion of the world's Carbon production. Not only are the clothes from fast fashion stores and brands made of poor quality materials, but they have also been proven to contain lots of extremely harmful chemicals. On top of all that, fast fashion is intended to change quickly to fit the new trends - hence the name - which is why a concerning amount of clothes (probably worn only like 5 times) end up in landfill after they're no longer trendy, only further polluting the planet.

A few ways to stay as far away from fast fashion culture that have worked the best for me are second-hand shopping and DIY (Do It Yourself). Half of my closet consists of my relatives' old clothing items, a lot of them waiting for summer to get customized and repurposed, while my own old clothes have already found their new owners (actual people, not the trash!).
Personally, I adore DIY. The possibilities are endless, regardless of skill or experience - all you need is a vision. I've made band t-shirts, bracelets, necklaces, cuffs and other accessories completely from scratch, and I can guarantee you that there is no better feeling than wearing something you made yourself.

So, I encourage more people to try out more sustainable fashion sources: go to thrift stores, alter and customize your old clothes. Reuse, recycle, repurpose!

I completely agree with your points about fast fashion! It’s a serious issue that often gets overlooked, especially with the rise of trends. I’ve also started shopping second-hand and repurposing old clothes, and it’s been a rewarding shift. In addition, I enjoy giving my used clothing to thrift stores and Goodwill’s because not only is it a relief for me, it has the opportunity to help a lot of people. It feels good to know i’m reducing waste as well. Making or customizing your own clothes adds so much personal value. Like you said, there’s nothing like wearing something you made yourself. I definitely think that more people need to realize that fashion can be both creative and sustainable, and by encouraging creativity, I believe that more people will be captivated to give reusing clothing a try! I have been thinking about this pretty consistently, and it has made me wonder how drastic of a change we can make by incorporating DIY and repurposing fashion into our everyday lives? It would be very interesting to observe, and even more to experiment with.

Reuse and Repurpose is recycling. This is good because instead of adding to the garbage dumps we can re-use junk and keep reusing it. This is good because if we keep just throwing stuff away then our oceans will keep being dirty and the beaches will also be dirty and thats not good because sea creatures die by choking on stuff.

I agree with you absolutely. Clothes that aren't actually wearable are often reused by my family. If the clothing is cotton, we usually use it as a cleaning tool for glass surfaces. It's quite useful and efficient. Additionally, we typically use cotton shopping bags for our grocery shopping.

Recycling isn't hard at all. I think an easy way to start off recycling is to buy a recycling bin and sort out all the trash that you have into groups of whatever can be recycled and that's the basics of recycling. If you really want to be environmentally friendly you could volunteer for recycling programs to help out around your area and around other places as well.

I agree with you.It helps reduce waste. Like, we produce so much trash every day,and recycling means that we’re giving materials a second chance instead of just tossing them in a landfill.That’s way better for the environment! Plus, recycling saves energy. When we recycle things like paper and plastic, it takes way less energy to turn them into new products than it does to create those products from scratch.

In my city, we sort trash (paper, plastic, glass, metal, biowaste and mixed waste). I agree that it is not hard. All the waste then goes for recycling which is very important for the planet. Sometimes I wonder if the products that I buy are made from recycled material? Recycling is very significant for the environment.

I think this is a great way to start recycling. It's not hard, you just need a recycling bin and know what type of waste goes where. We should all at least do that. I also like the idea of volunteering because that way we're not just helping nature, but also the people around us. If we all take at least a small step, together we can do a lot for our planet.

In Scotland a law was passed single so shops and supermarkets could give away single use plastic bags for free, there is a minimum charge of £0.05 for a bag
This has really encouraged people to reuse plastic shopping bags or take their own bags

I agree that charging for plastic bags in supermarkets is a good decision. They started charging for them in Croatia too, and after a while people realized how useful it is in reducing the use of plastic. I would like to point out something even more useful that each of us can do. We can reuse some old clothing material and sew a cloth bag that can also be used multiple times and is more environmentally friendly.

From the article “ Introduction: Reuse, Recycle, and Repurpose: The Afterlives of Japanese Material Culture” by Halle O’Neal the action of reuse and repurpose is focused and explained.
As defined within the article, “To reuse, recycle, or repurpose an object often necessitates repairing that object so that its usefulness can continue.” By completing the action of repurposing an object this will help allow in a decrease of trash buildup. Not only does it help with decreasing waste but the reuse aspect allows for that object to continue to be useful in a variety of ways.

https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/a … e/id/3985/

I really like this idea, not only does it cut down on waste but it could potentially give the item a new home and purpose.

This idea could save countless things used for the materials we need and use the old things and repurpose them to be used in the new ages.

YEAH I AGREE DUDEEEEEEEEEEE!

Fast Fashion. This has become a term everyone has become familiar with. Over the last couple of years, fast fashion has made its presence known. The fashion industry itself is known to be responsible for almost 10% of our global emissions. Fast fashion produces massive amounts of clothing that are more affordable and more efficient to produce. These industries jump on latest trends to draw in large crowds. However, even though this sounds extremely convenient, fast fashion has made numerous detrimental effects on the environment. Clothing requires unimaginable amounts of oil, space, chemicals and water to produce. According to BBC, it is estimated that it takes 2,700 litres of water to produce ONE t-shirt! Unbelievable right?! Over the years, globally, clothing has made a huge impact on our own personal carbon footprints. To combat this issue, we have to make the choice of supporting more sustainable brands. We should also be willing to reuse and repurpose our materials.  Every single action of ours, impacts someone or something else in one way or another. It’s important that we are aware of the results of our actions. By dressing green, we can save green!

I agree. Fast fashion has been a problem. One thing you can do is to stop going to fast fashion places and start thrifting. thrifting is a good way to stop buying fast fashion. When you thrift the clothes are generally cheaper and could be better quality and also decreases your carbon footprint. It's also a good way to reuse and repurpose clothing that were once used.

Did you know that 19 precent of Canadian households drink primarily bottled water. This just shows that there are still so many people that don't use a water bottle. It us very important to use a water bottle because it prevents us from using so much unnecessary plastic. it is also way cheeper to use a water bottle instead of buying bottles water because if you have a water bottle you can just refill it but if you buy bottled water than you have to buy it every time you need water. You can also just refill the bottle of water you buy and keep refilling it instead of getting a new one every time. This is why you should just buy a reusable water bottle because it will save you money, time and help the environment.