Combating Textile Waste with the Three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

摘要

While celebrating Earth Week and Fashion Revolution Day in an elementary school this year, students were asked to assess their wardrobe: to count their clothes and comment on the number they own. The average was 106 and the median was 73. While some students had as few as 17 garments, others had wardrobes numbering in the hundreds. One even had as many as 451 garments. Even from a young age, children are accustomed to having more clothes than they'll ever need or want. Many of these clothes, they admit, they'll never even wear. Some expressed surprise about their number, some were even distressed. Clothes came from two sources: purchased new by relatives, or handed down by friends and family. Though second-hand may be common among children, adults are much less interested in the idea of wearing reused clothing. Nonetheless, they remain interested in having lots of clothes, even if they never wear them.