The spring cleaning season is officially here. As the weather gets warmer, many people practice the custom of decluttering their closet, tossing out or storing their bulky winter clothes and replacing their hangers with bright spring trends.
However, this rush to deep clean often perpetuates the build up of textile waste in landfills. According to FABSCRAP, a textile recycling service, Philadelphia discarded 31,577 tons of textile scraps in 2017 alone.
But while discarding belongings can be problematic, John Braverman, S.J., Ph.D., associate professor and director of environmental science and sustainability studies, recommends that college students do participate in spring cleaning, but that they do so in an environmentally-conscious way.
“Spring cleaning before the end [of the school year] is a good idea so that the end doesn’t turn out to be this rushed, hurried moment to discard a lot of things with no time to think about the recycling part of it or about the donations,” Braverman said.
According to the Center for Ecotechnology, 95% of all textiles have the potential to be reused or recycled, but only an average of 15% are actually repurposed.
“A lot of things that are actually good and usable end up in the trash,” Braverman said.
Just as quickly as clothes are being discarded, the perpetuation of fast fashion, or inexpensive, mass-produced clothing, is only furthering the problem. According to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, current textile production has led to 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually, and is expected to rise by 60% by 2030.
As fast fashion has become a notorious topic across social media, and as spring-cleaning season is among us, St. Joe’s students are actively rethinking their consumer choices.
Kate Maginnis ’23 has reconsidered the way she discards her clothes after reading “Fashionopolis” by Dana Thomas, a book about the exploitation of fashion workers in Asia and Eastern Europe as well as the environmental negligence of the fashion industry.
“It literally changed my life and made me want to declutter, stop buying fast fashion and be a more ethical consumer,” Maginnis said.
Maginnis has shifted her consumption away from fast fashion brands like Shein, Fashion Nova and Forever 21 and toward second hand clothing. She also created a capsule wardrobe, a minimized closet consisting of a small selection of interchangeable essentials rather than a closet full of trends.
“What makes me sick to my stomach is the Shein hauls or people who have to have a different outfit because they wore this one last week,” Maginnis said. “Repeat your outfits, it’s good for the earth.”
Several campus organizations have also begun environmentally-conscious spring cleaning initiatives. Alpha Phi Omega (APO) and Club Running recently teamed up with the sneaker recycling organization, GotSneakers, and placed drop boxes in Wolfington Hall and O’Pake Recreation Center for gently worn sneakers.
200 million pairs of shoes end up in American landfills each year and can take 30 to 40 years to fully decompose, according to the GotSneakers website.
“We are helping the environment because the sneakers wouldn’t be going into the landfill,” said Teresa Scalanga ’23, APO’s finance chair who came up with the idea for the shoe drive. “And, we would be helping other people by allowing them to buy refurbished sneakers at a lower price.”
When it comes to tangible goods, Braverman said while individuals ultimately need to understand that they have a moral responsibility to be conscious about the whole life cycle of an item, change comes in numbers.
“It’s important for students at St. Joe’s because we are a group,” Braverman said. “Even though I think the individual can have an impact, individuals are part of a community.”
Alpha Phi Omega and Club Running’s GotSneaker fundraiser will continue collecting sneaker donations in O’Pake Recreation Center and Wolfington Hall until April 12.
