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Fast fashion or Thrifting?

When wearing clothes has just a big of a carbon footprint as driving a car.

By Jen PhillipsPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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The Fashion industry has a huge impact on today’s world. There are so many ways of being able to get our latest fashion. But at what cost?

As the human population grows, so does the fashion industry. In order to keep up with the demand for things, companies need to find a way to speed things up and find a cheaper way to get things done faster. Having said that there are negative impacts on the environment. Some of those impacts are using cheap, toxic textile dyes- leaving the fashion industry the second largest polluters. Of course, there are consequences. There is always a consequence for everything. Some of these consequences are depletion of non- renewable sources, emission of greenhouse gasses, and using mass amounts of water and energy.

In today’s society, it’s so easy and convenient to be able to purchase fast fashion. It’s as easy and convenient as a click of a button. What happens when there is a new line or a new season of clothes? And you go through your wardrobe to get rid of those “old clothes”? You usually have two options for this: Landfill or Donate.

Donating your “old clothes’ is probably one of the more sustainable choices of the two. There are many options for donating your clothes. One of which is donating your clothes to thrift stores.

Shopping in thrift stores have been coming more popular over the past couple of years. Thrifting became trendy. With thrifting comes benefits. One of those amazing benefits is that you’re saving money.

Sometimes when browsing through the thrift store, if you are lucky, you can actually find brand new clothes. These clothes will even have the original tag on them. Double bonus if its name brand. This goes with the benefit of saving money because you’ll see the original price of the item and then the thrift store's price of the item. To which you will get said item at a fraction of the price that the name brand is selling it for.

But most of the time you’ll just find the items in the thrift store are used items.

Another great benefit is that thrift stores have decades full of clothing. Need to find something vintage to tip off your cute outfit? No worries you can find something at the thrift store.

Besides your wallet and finding vintage items, thrifting also helps with the environment. Which keeps clothes out of the landfill. Also, keeps the demand down for making brand new pieces of clothing that help with the environment.

Mind you, sometimes you can’t keep everything out of the landfill. Sometimes clothes do fall apart and get tossed away. Then again if it’s able to be salvaged and able to use the old t-shirt as a rag instead that also helps to keep things out of the landfill and keeps the earth a little bit cleaner.

There are people who have an issue of wearing someone else’s old clothes. I myself have been one of those people where I had an issue of wearing someone else’s clothes because I thought it was “dirty” but that isn’t really the case. Thrift stores comb threw everything before adding the item to shelves. At the same time, people wash their brand-new clothes when they purchase clothing from a retail store. People also try the clothes on at a retail store and the next person buys it and wears it the next day. In that case what would be the difference anyways? Shopping at a thrift store or a retail store? Just wash the clothes if you are worried about the item being dirty.

At the end of the day everyone needs clothing but at what cost? The cost of you or the environment? Can’t stop material items from being made but we can stop the material items from landing in landfills. In today’s day and age, we have the power to do almost everything at the click of the button.

Everyone has their own way of shopping for the clothing they need. The most convenient way of shopping for your clothing if it’s thrifting or if its fast-fashion depends on what is available in the neighbourhood.

shopping
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About the Creator

Jen Phillips

Having a creative imagination has no limitations. My favourite past time is just dumping all my thoughts on to paper and seeing where it goes.

You can follow me on Instagram, Twitter

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