Ignite Passion Project: Trash Pollution and Recycled Fashion Line
My project was understanding trash pollution, especially the plastic polluting our natural environment and how to reduce, reuse, and recycle trash. One specific action is to understand our impact when we make choices in purchase clothes. The Fashion and Clothing Industry is one of the top contributors to environment harm. It creates 8-10% of total global emissions. It also takes 2% of farmland to produce cotton. Polyester requires 3.2 MILLION barrels of oil annually. 43 million TONS of chemicals are used to dye clothing. Therefore, buy less clothes, donate to goodwill stores and support responsible manufacturing brands.
To raise awareness towards trash pollution, I designed and made an 100% recycled costume out of used toilet rolls, cardboard, newspapers, plastic bottles, trash bags, and drink cartons.
My Recycled Fashion Line
The Impact On Me
After my passion project, I reflected that the country I am living in (China) is a mass producer of clothing and everything used in our daily lives. Most of these items are created in the cheapest and most convenient way. For example, using chemical dye and polyester is costs way less than using cotton or natural dyes, and this often hurts our environment.
Therefore, I decided to take some action in my life. I limit myself to buy no more than 1 piece of clothing every month (bear in mind that this is demanding because marketers promote their clothing EVERYWHERE), I completely boycotted jeans because they have a ridiculously short lifespan and use a massive amount of water. In fact, a single pair of jean require more than 7000 liters of water! (sustainabilitymag.com). I also keep my eyes open for second hand clothing and purchase those instead of buying new ones. I believe that every action counts, even if it only makes a teaspoon of change. Guess what, 8 billion teaspoons make more than 300,000 barrels!