Catalina: Sustainability through Fashion

Threads that Tread Lightly: Sustainable Fashion for the Future

By Catalina Hussung

We all heard of ways to be green… But have you heard of sustainability through fashion? 

At the Youth Climate Summit which was hosted at the Garrison Union Free school, Katelyn Murray, a fashion designer, discussed the issue of fashion’s unsustainability and demonstrated several creative methods for repurposing old clothing. For example, she was talking about how you can reuse plastic water bottles to make clothing textiles. Another workshop leader at the Youth Climate Summit showed us how you can take a tire and make it into a small bag which looked very nice. This is important because it reduces the amount of trash from fashion being thrown away. The less garbage being produced in the environment, the more room we have to be healthy. By reusing the used clothes, it helps us be more not wasteful. She reused clothes by taking and sewed it to make it look brand new.

There are many places to get used clothes to repurpose. St Mary's Church in Cold Spring, NY and St. Phillips in Garrison, NY right next to our school each have a bin where you can donate clothes so people can reuse them. This is called a Salvation Army Collection Point. People can reuse the clothes and wear them instead of throwing them away. In January and at the Summit at The Garrison School, students hosted a clothing donation where students give their old clothes to the school so they can reuse it. It made it very successful because it helps people reuse there clothes and not waste it  to trade. And also they trade clothes to get something new.  

This is all really important because it can help the environment by reusing all these materials. Reducing waste is vital. Reusing will all make us happier and healthier by producing less garbage to our Earth. You can do this by instead of throwing clothes away, find somewhere like St. Mary or another church and donate it.

By reusing old clothing or even donating, you can really make a difference and help us all be less wasteful and damaging to the environment. This is something that anyone can do - and it doesn’t cost anything since it’s free!