Tackling Clothing Waste on Eckerd College's Campus

 

Tackling Clothing Waste on Eckerd College's Campus

Tori Mullaney

 Did you know that every year, nearly 90 million tons of clothing ends up in landfills across the globe? To put this in perspective, it is said the average American consumer throws away 70 pounds of clothing a year. This number is staggering, especially knowing that clothing is easy to recycle. In order to truly grasp this number, it is important to note the process of making clothing, what resources it uses, and how quickly clothing is being made. Then, we can grasp at why this waste is detrimental to our environment. 



  1. How is clothing made?
    • The process of making clothing is a process that happens every second of everyday around the globe. With our global population so high, there is a strong need for clothing. 
    • Clothing production can take place in factories, which contributes to our global CO2 emissions every year; this has a direct negative impact on our environment and can lead to increased climate change effects.
    • To further explain the process of clothing being made, here is a good video resource:

    • As shown in the video, the process of making clothing takes a lot of energy, resources, and water. These are resources that continue to become more scarce as time goes on. 
  2. What resources are needed to make clothing?
    • The process of making clothing requires materials, such as cotton, water, and energy. Clothing, especially garments that are dyed, needs a lot of water to be made. When dyeing garments, water can become contaminated, making it nearly impossible to "recycle".
    • Harvesting material such as cotton and silk are takes a lot of labor, as well as takes a lot of resources to grow (such as water).
  3. How quickly is clothing being made?
    • Nearly 100 billion garments are produced every year.
    • This makes production to be face-paced, which requires more resources 
    • Of the 100 billion garments made, 92 million tonnes will end up in our planet's landfills.


Okay, I get it. The production of clothing is harmful. What can I do to help?

In order to bring awareness to the magnitude of clothing waste on Eckerd College's campus, I decided to host a clothing drive. This clothing drive was an effort to decrease waste, as well as to give back to the community (sustainable!) this holiday season. The clothing drive was hosted across campus from December 6th, 2022 to December 13th, 2022. Clothing drives can be an easy way to clear your closet. Instead of donating to places like Goodwill, who discard unwanted clothing if they do not sell in their stores, further adding to the growing waste, one can donate their clothing to those in need. This makes for a sustainable way to "discard" of your unwanted clothing and can help those in need. Hosting a clothing drive can be very easy. There are few materials that you need:
  1. A cause. For my clothing drive, I wanted to focus on giving back to the community in a sustainable way while also combatting an environmental issue I am passionate about. When you have an initial cause, your drive to carry out the cause is more powerful.
  2. Boxes. Now, you could easily go to the post office and buy new boxes, or use plastic bags. This would not be a sustainable way to host this clothing drive. For my clothing drive, I collected the donations in recycled boxes from my workplace. Using recycled materials, especially if you want to be as sustainable as possible, can be very important!
  3. Communication. It is very important to communicate your cause. In order to communicate my clothing drive across campus, I created flyers. These flyers were placed around campus to help spread the word. I also communicated my cause via email. Each Eckerd student received an email with my digital flyer, as well as a brief explanation to why I am doing my clothing drive. It is important to keep flyers flashy and emails brief. People generally do not want to read something for too long, so keeping your communication concise and pleasing will help to bring your message across more clearly!
  4. A place of donation. Although this clothing drive was created with the environment in mind, that does not mean that that is its sole purpose! A clothing drive can greatly benefit a community. For my clothing drive, I collected the donations and brought them to a shelter in downtown St. Petersburg, FL called Daystar Life Center. This center provides clothing, food, and other resources to those effected by poverty in the St. Petersburg community. This way, those who may not have the means to buy clothing can still have access to it. This allowed the clothing drive to have a positive impact and both the environment and the community! Many environmental issues go hand-and-hand with humanity; it is important to protect and help both!
The flyer used for the clothing drive, as well as a donation box placed in Zeta's lounge. 

Why is communication important?

Humans use communication every day. This can be through face-to-face communicating, communicating digitally, or even indirect communication. When there are environmental issues, such as the issue of clothing waste, that can actually be changed, it is important to spread the word. This issue cannot be solved by a single person. It takes everybody. If we can donate or recycle clothing instead of discarding garments, then we can start to create more and more change. Every process starts somewhere; even small changes can continue to cause bigger ripples. Change is possible if people are willing to make an effort towards change.



Citations: 

Brown, Rachel. “The Environmental Crisis Caused by Textile Waste.” Rr-Lgo-1, https://www.roadrunnerwm.com/blog/textile-waste-environmental-crisis.

“The Fashion Industry Waste Is Drastically Contributing to Climate Change.” CALPIRG, 14 Sept. 2022, https://pirg.org/california/articles/the-fashion-industry-waste-is-drastically-contributing-to-climate-change/.

Igini, Martina. “10 Stunning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics.” Earth.Org, 18 Nov. 2022, https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/#:~:text=The%20Average%20US%20Consumer%20Throws,landfills%20on%20a%20yearly%20basis.

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