Clothing Conciousness

This week, for our final eco-challenge, we calculated the (rough) average of the miles our clothes had traveled, and what percentage was made in sweatshops. Then we put that information, along with what percentage of our clothing was bought second-hand on a pin that we wore all week. This was a lot easier than remembering my bag of trash everywhere--I just stuck it on a jacket that I wear all the time. I also got a lot more comments than on the zero-waste challenge--maybe because it was less weird, so people were less afraid to comment? However, as we didn't really do a lesson that accompanied this challenge, I felt less prepared to answer people's questions. "Wow, 70% of your clothes were made in sweatshops, that's a lot," someone commented. "It was relatively small compared to my classmates," I responded, "and most clothing from major American brands are made in sweatshops." "So where are we supposed to get our clothes from?" they responded. The fact is, I still don't know. There are some websites that "rate" brands, but when we were searching for whether or not brands used sweatshops, we couldn't find a comprehensive source that had information for all major brands. And so my clothes were made in a sweatshop--what do I do about that? It makes me feel guilty, but it's not as if I'm going to throw out all my underwear because they were made by Victoria's Secret.

What I did like about this challenge is that it made me think about my purchasing habits, especially about what I get from second-hand stores. I estimated that about 15% of my wardrobe comes from second-hand sources, mostly because I went through a phase in high school in which it was "cool" to buy from second-hand stores, and I also trade clothes with friends and my sister. But I mostly think of second-hand for silly pieces, not "real" clothes. And my mother, in particular, treats any second-hand shopping as a phase that I will grow out of.

I can't believe that this is the last blog of the semester! It's gone by so fast. My new task? To keep challenging myself to think about how my habits affect the environment, without the "kick" of a class to keep me in line.