5. Take Care of Your Clothing
Extend the life cycle of your clothing so you don't need to shop as often. Buy quality products and then take care of those products. Read the care labels and wash your clothing following those instructions. Instead of just tossing an item in the trash, try to fix it. If it can't be fixed, can the fabric be recycled? Look for a place that takes unwanted clothing and recycles it. Avoid donating a lot of clothing to charitable clothing companies. Charities receive so much clothing and only 10-20% of it is actually resold to the community. You're better off reselling it yourself on a site like Poshmark, send it to a company like Thredup to sell for you, or give to a textile recycler.
Why should we care about any of this?
We've only got one Earth. It's time to start taking care of it. We are in a textile waste crisis and the fashion industry along with consumer overconsumption is a huge part of the problem. 32 billion garments are produced each year just for the US market! 64% of those garments end up in a landfill! So just returning one clothing item back into the circular economy reduces its carbon footprint by 82%. Educate yourself, really think about your purchases, make quality purchases, take care of those clothes, and shop secondhand if you can. If you are really done with a piece of clothing try to resell it or send it to a textile recycler. We can do better. We can change things.