No Planet for Clothes

One day, as I was putting old clothes in the donation bin, thinking I was doing a good deed as usual, I saw a group T-shirt with the title of the program and wondered, “Is there anyone who would actually wear this? Where do all these clothes actually go?”
While I was searching for the whereabouts of the used clothes purely out of curiosity, I came across a photo on an overseas Instagram account. It was of heaps of old clothes and cows munching on synthetic textiles instead of grass. The photo was taken at a secondhand market in Ghana. I sent an e-mail to the person who took the photo, and started interviewing her on Zoom.
“Have you ever seen secondhand clothes from South Korea?” “Yes, I see them every week. They come in yellow sacks with ‘Made in Korea’ labels, so it’s hard not to notice.” And that’s how this program began.
This program focused on the heavy environmental price we pay behind the pleasure of buying and discarding inexpensive clothes. A $7.90 T-shirt cannot be made without labor which can be hired at extremely low wages, or rivers and seas that are polluted for rock bottom prices. Clothes, already exceeding the amount we need, are burnt if unsold; and even the clothes that are sold soon end up as mountains of waste in Africa. This program achieved its first goal of highlighting the issue of overproduction and irresponsible disposal. Instead of making faux fur, vegan leather, or plastic bottle t-shirts which we know are not the right solutions, my hope is that the fashion industry takes pride as professionals and seriously ponders about sustainability. Also, I hope 2022 becomes a year in which the careful production of good quality clothes and lengthy wear of favorite items is regarded as cool. We are not disposables that need a new label every day, and we do not have another Earth that will willingly swallow up our clothes.