The Massive Ecological Impact of Fashion

The environmental burden of children’s clothing – I always thought it was weird that there were so many non-perishable products being built.  Not just cars, but clothes to TV’s, watches and just about everything else.  I always thought: “hasn’t there been enough stuff made for everyone to have everything?”   The short answer to this question is, Yes.   The production volume of virtually ever product of need has already been produced, many of those being non-perishable products that have significant life remaining.  The problem is two-fold.  Distribution, and local economic value to the user.  Take children’s clothing for example.. An area near and deal to our hearts owning a children’s resale store.  There are mountains of clothes, some completely unworn in closets of average Americans.  Not because these people are hoarders – just simply because their children grew too quickly for them to utilize those items.   Conversely, there are thousands of kids, right here in the US of A, that have little sense of fashion, clothes that fit and in some cases, clothing at all.  For the first group, their full closets of unusable clothes have been depreciated to zero.  Not in real economic value mine you,  in practical value,  the family has no use and in a lot of cases, no time to liquidate those clothes.  Meanwhile, those values still have value, particularly to the kids who are struggling in school because they’re wearing 3 generation old hand me downs.  Putting this all into perspective, it sort of drives home the point of ‘maybe we shouldn’t keep buying new clothes?’  or at the very least ‘maybe all those clothes we have in the closet could be used by someone else?’  if you’re not asking those questions, which many aren’t, then its really a contributor to a lesser known but massive global system of the misdistribution of goods where the is still economic value to marginalized groups.  This problem, however complex, is something we could all spend a little effort focusing on and maybe approach a society that has less stuff, less waste and magically result in more for everyone.