The thrift store hums with the buzz of overhead lights. The racks are filled with faded polyester and cheap fabrics, many still having SHEIN tags.
Once-popular trends now feel abandoned, stitched together by quick promises of style. Things bought from fast fashion websites will be sold for double the price, causing the vicious cycle of fast fashion waste.
Fashion trends change with new styles coming and going each week.
“Fast fashion is lower prices and lower quality items that move in and out of fashion very quickly, so they become very trendy. Everybody buys them, they drop off, and then create something else that’s very trendy,” family and consumer sciences teacher Ahren Wagner said.
A closet is not an endless portal to throw clothes into. Once something is deemed “unstylish” it will most likely be donated by people who think they are doing something revolutionary, when in reality, it will most likely sit and rot in thrift stores.
In a phone call to the Goodwill store on Beechmont Avenue in Cincinnati, an anonymous worker explained how clothes end up in different stores.
“Our clothes are on a four-to-six-week rotation between different locations. If it is still not sold, then we send it to the Goodwill Outlet, better known as “the bins” or auction it,” they said.
If the clothing is still not being bought in the Goodwill Outlet, it could either be given to charities, recycled, or completely tossed.
Clothing companies know how to capitalize off of their consumers and the quickly changing fashion industry, meaning they are pumping out cheaply made clothes at a rate the environment cannot handle.
Author for Earth.Org and holder of a PhD in cultural studies, Rashmila Maiti, explains the amount of waste the fashion industry produces yearly,
“The industry dries up water sources and pollutes rivers and streams, while 85% of all textiles go to dumps each year,” Maiti said.
AP environmental science teacher, Andrea Higgins, added to this point.
“The amount of clothes sold just for cheap wear often get disposed of easily and end up in landfills,” Higgins said.
Avoiding fast fashion can be difficult, especially on a budget. However, the term “quality over quantity” can be helpful to keep in mind when shopping. Quality does not always mean expensive.
“I think that good quality and non-fast fashion items can be found on Shein if you shop mindfully. It’s important to think ahead and ask yourself, ‘Is this a trend or will I be able to wear this for a while?”” Caroline Palicki (9) said.
By making thoughtful choices, people can build a long-lasting wardrobe that will be in style for years to come. This not only saves money but also reduces the amount of clothing pollution that’s happening now.
