Tag Archives: sustainability

Embracing Fast Fashion Sobriety

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For my blog this week I decided to look into current news stories that highlight sustainability. I came across a story about a book called Consumed written by Aja Barber. This article explains the dangers and impacts of fast fashion that are described in Barber’s book. It also recommends different ways for consumers to ease out of their fast fashion addiction and transition into living as more sustainable shoppers. From this article, it is clear that Barber’s book has a lot of similarities to Beth Terry’s book Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too. Both authors recognize the threat that our world is facing from things like plastic or more specifically clothing textiles. Barber and Terry both focus on the importance of personal change and encouraging others to participate in fighting back against the use of plastic.

The article opens with facts from Business Insider explaining how bad the fashion industry is for the environment. It mentions that “10% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from the fashion industry, how badly workers are exploited, and the high amounts of waste that come from the industry”. Barber elaborates on how all clothing companies will reach their downfall if they do not end up switching into a more sustainable route due to a lack of resources and the growing request for sustainable options from consumers.

Barber also dives into the societal addiction to fast fashion that has developed over recent years. She explains that shopping is truly an addiction that makes people’s dopamine levels rise, hence it is a very difficult habit to break. Barber shares her process of slowly detaching herself from her favorite stores by unsubscribing from email lists and trying to avoid the stores altogether. She explains that this is a difficult process and that it is okay to mess up and fold into the addiction of fast fashion. Progress isn’t linear but the more you can keep yourself accountable, the more you will be able to become clean from fast fashion. 

I chose this article because it hits very close to home for me. From a very young age, I had an addiction to shopping and I think I could say the same about most of my peers.  I remember getting Justice (a clothing brand for young girls) catalog every week in first grade and searching through it to find new clothing items that I wanted to purchase for the next time that my mom took me shopping. This continued to be a trend for me up until I started learning about the harm of fast fashion and overconsumption. Even throughout high school it was very socially important to always have the newest phone and trending clothes or else you were looked at a little differently. I think this article and book would be a really great read for kids in my generation because we truly don’t realize the harm of our overconsumption until we sit down and actually dissect it. It wasn’t until the end of high school that I started to realize the impact of my consumption especially when it came to my clothes.

While reading this article I think it is important to highlight Barber’s bias and privilege of being able to afford the lifestyle of shopping sustainably. A lot of people don’t have access to affordable, environmentally friendly clothing brands. For me, this means is that if you are privileged enough to afford environmentally friendly brands and are aware of the dangers of fast fashion, you should put your money where your mouth is and vote with your dollar bills. Money is the main thing keeping fast fashion in business so if we are able to pull the plug on their funding, it won’t be able to survive.

Change is Hard

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Change. Change is one of the biggest factors of our lives. Changing jobs, changing schools, changing majors, but many people overlook one of the most beneficial, but yet possibly most difficult things to change. This change is change in plastic. More of our lives than we realize revolve around plastic. From our toothbrushes to our cars, almost everything used in your daily life is made partially out of plastics. All this plastics makes our lives much easier and convenient, but in the sense of things, 91 percent of these aren’t recycled at all and end up in landfills. This is why we need change in our use of plastics.

You, as the reader, may think this is a tall task to do, but it is much easier than many would think. There are many daily options around us that we can replace with much more sustainable goods. Things like garbage bags, ziplock bags, and plastic grocery bags are the easiest to think of. But there is much more. We can even replace things like makeup, soap, and laundry detergent with much more sustainable, plasticless alternatives. For garbage bags, you can separate your bins. You can use one bin for dry things and another, with a bag, for wet things. For smaller garbage bags, you can reuse old bread bags. All of these goods have sustainable alternatives that are sold in almost all store, you just have to make the switch and go from speed and convenience, to a little more time required to help make the world a better place for future generations to come.

I participated in doing this myself this week. I did two very simple but effective things. The first thing I changed was my bathroom garbage bag. As I said earlier, you can use old bread bags, which is exactly what I did. This change did not affect my life at all. I still have the bag in and it is just like using a regular garbage bag. Its a little nicer though because the bag is longer, allowing me to be able to fit more into it. The second change I did was changing to using powdered laundry detergent. This was a more impactful change to my life, because I was used to just throwing in a tide pod and forgetting about it. Using powdered detergent, I had to measure it out, using a tablespoon and a half, and then pour it into the correct spot of the washing machine. The end result was the same though. Fresh clothes and less plastic used.

Overall, these are minute changes to our lives that, if everyone participated in, would have a big change on the world. Just changing small amounts of our lives to be more sustainable would cut out much of the plastics that are ending up in landfills and our oceans. These changes would also mean we would need less of these plastics, resulting in less toxins being released from production and less natural resources being destroyed. So, living sustainably is a small price to pay for a big reward to the environment.

Its the Little Things

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I don’t think it is an individual’s intention ever to live a life full of plastic and completely full of debris and waste; however, no human is perfect and we all have been trained to always engage and consume products that are at our convenience due to our hectic and busy lives. The question to be asked though is if you had the opportunity and resources to change, would you? I think most people would answer yes to that question, myself included, because, with the freedom, resources, and opportunities to do better for our world, most people, especially my generation would be willing to take the small steps they need in order to become more plastic-free.

I would consider changing many things, it’s more about the sustainable products cost and the availability to me readily as a college student without a car. However, it is my intention through this class to learn ways to change multiple little things in life that will hopefully transition my patterns and habits into more sustainable options that will continue to influence those directly around me. I do believe that making small changes in my daily life, whether it’s encouraging my friends to buy groceries from the farmer’s markets on Sundays, or consciously choosing to opt-out of straws when dining in, will leave a subtle impact on those around me to slowly change small habits as well that can make a small difference in their plastic consumption habits as well. It’s valuable for humans to make multiple little changes in order to increase sustainability because no matter the size or value of the small contribution towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle, the more sustainability mindset increases. 

Deli meat. Deli meat has been the hardest, although not specifically a plastic item, to replace to be completely plastic-free. Whether I am buying the turkey, ham, salami, or whatever it may be, from the shelves lined along with the grocery store or asking for fresh cuts from the actual market within the store, there typically is always some plastic element involved. Whether it be wrapped or packaged, there is hardly anyway I have been able to avoid the placement of one-time usage disposable packaging on my deli meat. Granted, if I was a vegetarian this issue would be completely avoidable; however, experiencing life in a big family [Eight people total] deli meat was always a staple as a convenient way to grab a quick source of protein and move forward with the day, and this was done with little to no throughout of the aftermath of the plastic wrappers and containers that all of it was kept

Although there is good news, with many different companies realsing more eco-friendly products, there is hope to create a more sustainable everyday lifestyle. I have created a list of ways to create a less plastic waste lifestyle from Beth Terry’s examples, and have consciously tried to find more reusable and sustainable products when I go shopping.

There was three things this week that I replaced with more sustainable options:

  1. Fruit– instead of buying fruit in plastic packaging from the grocery store, a friend and I were able to find compile fresh fruits into a small tote bag we had brought last Saturday at the a mini market they had after the Cooper River Bridge Run. This little change of how I receive fruit was not only a fresher and healthier option but also cut out any plastic packaging that would have been used in the production and consumption of fruit at any grocery store. As the market was so close to the dorms I faced no challenges getting the fruit and only reaped benefits from the interaction and will most likely to continue to search out food markets in downtown and strictly buy my fruit from that.
  2. Milk Jugs– After realizing the amount of milk jugs disposed off, with little ability to fully recycle them into new products, I have moved to buying cartons in hopes to produce less plastic waste overall. I actually found I liked this option more as I didnt necessarily need a full gallon jug of milk complelty for myself and have discovered I actually not only waste less plastic, but food product.
  3. Ziploc-After going to the store this week I decided to buy some small reusable bags for small snacks and products I take with me from place to place. While I found it more convenient to just throw out a small bag after using it in the trash as I was walking by, making the conscious decision to put it in a reusable, washable bag has made me feel better and more sustainable in my habits overall. From this point forward I hope to continue using this method and get rid of Ziploc all together.

In my advice I would say go for it, make the small changes, only positive interactions with yourself and the world can come from the little things in life!

 

 

 

Plastic All Around

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When I woke up today and started collecting my plastics, I anticipated the numbers to be very similar to the first experience I had to tracking my plastics throughout the day. The first time I tracked the plastic objects I used throughout the day, I had about 40 different plastic objects in total. The bright side from that was that only about 5 of the plastic objects were single use. The results of tracking my plastics today was much different though. I payed much closer attention to what I used that is plastic based, but only ended up with roughly 25 objects, much less than I thought I would get by being more aware of what I’m using. The main cause for this is the fact that I did not play hockey today. Almost all hockey gear is partially made of plastic, so not having to come into contact with my gear today saved me about 7 objects. Other than this, the majority of my day was pretty similar to what a normal day looks like for me, which is why it was surprising to still get a lower number.

Many of the objects I used today were also reusable. The only non-reusable things I used were food wrappers. The fact that food wrappers are widely used though can provide some worry for the world. With how much packaged food is sold in grocery stores, large amounts of this packaging is most likely not being recycled and ending up in our environment. I was also caught off guard by the plastics that I found in unexpected locations, such as the gym. I never realized how much of the gym equipment is made of plastic, these things mainly being bands, the covers for metal weights, and the various machines.

While I do not think that there is a dedicated recycling facility in the area around College of Charleston, I do know there are many compost areas and recycling areas. As good as it may make us feel to put our waste in these, as we learned in class, these small bins do not help much. For waste to compost in large volume, the waste needs to be in a large area with heat and oxygen for the bacteria to work, but the composters on campus only allow for a small area and volume, and there is no true way to know if this waste is transported to a larger composting location. Single stream recycling bins, like the ones on campus, also produce many problems. In an article written by long time environmental reporter Jacob Fenston, he goes over how much of this recycling is actually contaminated. In a visit he took to a contamination station, he stated that, “…it’s as if for every nine trucks that dumps a load of recycling, a tenth truck pulls up and unloads nothing but trash,” (Fenston, 2019). This may not seems like much, but when you try to put into perspective the amount of people in the world all producing roughly 4.5 pounds of waste per day, this scenario seems much more tragic. So although there are the small areas for recycling, there is no true way to know how much is recycled after it is sent off.

Finally, Beth Terry says, “Guilt is not encouraged.” I agree with this because if you feel guilt and force yourself to feel guilt, you will focus too much on it and ruin your life. Therefore, I believe that we, as in the whole population, should strive towards not drastically changing our lifestyles, but being more aware about our waste and how we deal with it.

Works Cited:

Fenston, Jacob. “Does Your Recycling Actually Get Recycled? Yes. Maybe. It Depends.” WAMU, 5 Dec. 2019, wamu.org/story/19/02/12/does-your-recycling-actually-get-recycled-yes-maybe-it-depends/.

Sleeping Among Plastic

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My plastic consumption is something I am not very proud of. Before this class, I would only pay attention to things like where I bought my clothes, bringing reusable cups to places like Starbucks or the dining hall, and trying to avoid using straws. This was the extent of me being a “conscious consumer”. Ever since I began this class and started reading Beth Terry’s book Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too, I have changed my perception of what it truly means to be conscious of my consumption. Before taking this class, every time I would bring a reusable cup to Starbucks or avoid buying from places like H&M or Forever 21 I would give myself a pat on the back however, when I have purchased my bedding, room decor, or have gotten my acrylic nails done I would feel unphased about my plastic consumption. I have since learned that although I try to avoid single-use plastics when I am shopping, multi-use plastics are truly my downfall. 

Over the past few days, I have been pretty sick which has limited me to staying in my dorm and leaving for the occasional City Bistro trip. Thus, I haven’t had the same interaction with plastic items that I normally would’ve on a healthier day. Brainstorming this post in my bed has led me to think a lot about the things around me. Looking up, I see fairy lights and tapestry which both contain plastic components. On my bedside table, there’s a lamp, diffuser, water bottle, AirPods, essential oil bottles, remote control, pill bottle, stuffed animal, and masks which all contain plastic. As I inspected my room for all of the plastic I started realizing that the majority of my room contains plastic. My “conscious consumption” that I had previously mentioned hardly even matters when comparing that to the plastic I have in my dorm. Although most of these plastic items in my room won’t be disposed of any time soon, they eventually will end up in a landfill after my college graduation or sooner. Unfortunately, after analyzing my room, this is in fact a very accurate representation of my lifestyle and plastic footprint. I have become conditioned to the consumer lifestyle where I care more about the aesthetic of my living space and less about where the things in my living space are coming from. In the photo below I have numbered out all of the items containing plastic in a corner of my dorm room.

As someone who claims to care a lot about the environment, I personally don’t do the best job following through with it. Like I mentioned before, I try to stay away from single-use plastics if I can, shop for my clothes second-hand, and avoid using plastic straws, but is that really enough? I try my best to educate myself and others around me on the little, yet still important, things we can do to help reduce our waste. Like Beth Terry has mentioned in her book “Guilt is not encouraged”. Because of this quote, I would like to remind the reader and myself that there is always room for improvement and even if we can’t personally see the difference we are making right now, it does have a larger impact than we know.