By: Katie Beth Haidet
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV) – Many popular brands use the concept of fast fashion, manufacturing their clothing rapidly and producing high volumes of clothing,
With the accessibility of getting fashion delivered to your front door, it is easy to fill up a closet quickly.
With trends going in and out, nearly 60% of clothing ends up in a landfill.
One student on campus is trying to help this issue by reproducing wasted clothes. Owner of Grandpa’s Vintage, Cy Bond, spends his time scavenging through Fayetteville to find clothes from the 80’s and 90’s.
Bond said the quality of clothing was better years ago.
“Now a lot of companies overproduce and we over consume as consumers. Obviously if you’re buying secondhand clothing it doesn’t have to be produced again and it’s already lasted quite a while and it’s gonna be of better quality,” said Bond.
Sustainability Specialist, Lance Cheramie, said the more people reuse clothes, the more beneficial it is to the environment.
“The clothing is being reused. You know it’s not being thrown away, cut up, so on and so forth it’s taken care of. So it’s being recycled into the economy again and that’s called circularity,” says Cheramie.
Bringing an item back through the fashion life-cycle helps eliminate the amount of clothes ending up in landfills.
Cheramine said over the years the dyes and chemicals in the clothing starts to drain into the groundwater which could potentially contaminate our drinking water.
“There’s cases where people die of cancer in other countries because that is where the majority of these textiles are being produced,” said Cheramine.
With the rising popularity of vintage clothing, it helps reduce the problem of fast fashion.
“I sell mostly stuff from the 90’s or the 80’s. People just like the way it looks, overall you’re saving clothes from the landfill and you’re buying something that already exists and doesn’t have to be made,” said Bond.