There Are No Thrift Gods in a Global Warming Hell.

For my personal impact project, I've taken on the challenge of exclusively thrifting my clothes. I decided to do this for two reasons: I already had some background on the negative impacts of fast fashion (both ethical and environmental), and because shopping takes up a decent amount of my lifestyle. I haven't gone on my first thrifting trip yet, but I'm planning to go this Saturday and continue to thrift at least once every week.

Because I'm a trendy teen, this won't be my first time thrifting, so I know from past experience that hitting up just one place won't be enough. I'm planning to check out at least three places that I know will have some cool stuff.

- Lifelong: This is a pretty big shop right across from Urban (I'll be admiring from afar.) They have a ton of things, but I usually find shirts here.

- Out of the Closet: This is my favourite place to thrift because everything is super cheap, the staff is kind and I find a lot of cool things here.

- Crossroads Trading: This place has a lot of interesting things, but most of the time the items are overpriced. I'll mainly be going here for jewellery.

This week I'll be focussing on finding a pair of cool pants, some accessories, and maybe a nice sweater.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's go over why this matters.

Thrift shops (or second-hand shops) are stores that sell donated items for a marked down price. Some people thrift because it's all they can afford and others thrift for the novelty of it. The sub-group I'll be joining this month are the few that thrift to reduce their environmental impact. By thrifting, you're buying clothes that have been donated from people that may live in the same neighbourhood or even a few miles away. This effectively eliminates a huge fault within the fast fashion industry. According to Nathan Hurst in his article "What’s the Environmental Footprint of a T-Shirt?",  22% of the impact fast fashion has on the climate is due to the transportation of clothing to and from the store. By cutting out this factor, I'm significantly reducing my carbon footprint in more ways than one.

But I only mentioned one topic here! What more could I possibly be talking about??? I'm so glad you asked!

22% of fast fashions impact on the environment stems from transportation, but according to Hurst, 70% of the impact stems from garment production! Miss. Nylon and Polyester seem innocent when you see them on the garment description of your new Lulu Lemons, but in reality, they are linchpins of what I like to call Global Warming Hell (get it, because Earth's temperature is rising. Hah!).  Fibres like Nylon, polyester, and acrylic are all synthetically made. Meaning they're not naturally made. They contain plastics and are derived from unsustainable resources like coal or petroleum.  According to Ashlee Uren in her article "Material Guide: How Sustainable is Nylon?" When nylon is created, nitrous oxide, "a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide." is produced. The production of nylon also requires large amounts of water to cool the fibres as well as insane amounts of energy to manufacture. By thrifting, I ’ll avoid directly-supporting the production of synthetic fibres like acrylic, nylon, and polyester.

It'd be wonderful to completely cut synthetic fibres out of my wardrobe, but realistically this would be expensive and most likely not in abundant quantity at the thrift shops I frequent.