Sustainability Programs at Georgia Southern University is teaming up with student organization Fashion Menagerie, a group of fashion merchandising and apparel design students, to fight fast fashion by hosting the first campus thrift store on the Statesboro Campus. Clothing donations are currently being accepted through March 26 at various locations around campus.
Fast fashion is a textile trend where clothes are mass-produced to be quickly sold and thrown away.
“Tons of textile waste gets dumped from people throwing away their clothes, even the ones that are lightly used, but more clothing is constantly being produced,” said Geneisa Ragin, president of Fashion Menagerie. “This thrift store can help our campus prevent that increase of waste and give students a sustainable way to donate and shop that can discourage fast fashion production.”
Cami Sockow, Sustainability Programs coordinator, said in addition to being wasteful, fast fashion is often characterized by poor work conditions, such as underpayment, child labor, physical and verbal abuse, and working long hours.
Here’s what items can be donated:
“The social costs of fast fashion are immensely under discussed,” Sockow said. “We largely leave out the social conversation when we discuss sustainability, but this is a great example of how many social costs ensue with our addiction to consumption. So while we pay a low economic cost, we need to start asking ourselves if it is worth the social and environmental ones.”
Clothing donors will get shopping credits at the thrift store for each item they donate. The thrift store will also give shopping credits for donations of nonperishable food items, hygiene products and cleaning supplies to the Eagle Essentials Food Pantry.
The thrift store will be open March 31 and April 1 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Russell Union Rotunda. For more information on the credit system and to see drop-off locations, visit students.georgiasouthern.edu/LeadServe/sustainability/.
