Waste Wise: The Terrors of Textile Waste
by Lynx and Brimari
The air’s getting crisp, the leaves are falling, the pumpkin lattes are back at every cafe, and Halloween is right around the corner. This Spooky Season is gearing up to be a big one. New Yorkers are getting a 3-day Halloweekend, and daylight saving time is adding an extra hour to our Halloween plans. According to the National Retail Federation, around 74% of Americans are planning to celebrate Halloween this year. With interest this high, we know this weekend will be one for the books. While we can’t wait to see what costumes New Yorkers have put together, we can’t talk about Halloween without mentioning the textile waste issue. It’s no secret that overconsumption has become a major problem, especially in fast fashion. With Halloween creeping up, there’s bound to be a lot of last-minute costume shoppers. So, we wanna give y’all some wisdom on textile waste before you waste money on a costume you’ll only wear once a year.
Spooky Stats
Did you know that “Americans throw away 35 million costumes every single year?” (CBS News). In a city of 8.5 million people, thinking about the amount of costumes thrown away after Halloween is scary. Our textile waste doesn’t just disappear after tossing either, it can have far-reaching impacts.The United States ships a lot of its waste to other countries. A large portion of textile waste specifically ends up on Ghanaian lakes, beaches, and rivers. According to a post by The Guardian, fishermen’s jobs have become more difficult due to the tons of clothes that end up on the shores. Textile waste has affected ecosystems, too, by pushing out sea life and adding microplastics. A lot of pop-up Halloween stores sell plastic costumes and props that only get used for a day. When cheaply made costumes get thrown out, the plastics take a long time to decompose—anywhere from 20 to 200 years. Spooky! As they break down, they release millions of microplastics into our environment. It gets even spookier because these microplastics have already found their way into our bodies, and scientists are still studying their potential effects, according to Penn State EDU.
It’s easy to ignore a problem because we don’t see its effects directly. While wealthier countries like the US have the privilege of shipping our waste to other parts of the world, we owe it to our global neighbors and our ecosystems to do something about this issue.Thankfully, it’s getting easier to opt out of this kind of waste production in NYC.
What You Can Do in NYC
Over the years, we’ve seen a rise in thrifting culture in the city and a movement toward living more sustainably. However, if you haven’t yet gotten a chance to switch your habits, we’ve got you with some recommendations to get started!
Instead of hitting up the Halloween pop-up shop the day before Halloween, you can try searching through your local thrift store, which is bound to have some fun Halloween options donated by people the year before. We recommend this map made by DSNY to find textile waste drop-off sites, with filters for finding thrift stores. This also ties into our second waste reduction tip for y’all: DONATE! You might have something sitting in your closet that you don’t wear anymore that could be the final piece in someone else’s costume. Not sure where to donate? No worries. You can also search through the DonateNYC webpage for other donation sites. Don’t limit yourself to donating and thrifting during this season, either. Doing this year-round ensures that clothes stay out of landfills for a long time and that they get the most use out of their lifespan. For our late and lazy costume finders, don’t forget that color and a little bit of makeup go a long way on Halloween!
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Lynx and Brimari are the new NYC service members for the Sanitation Foundation. They are both native New Yorkers helping to inform other New Yorkers about how to build and maintain a clean city. We are the team behind Waste Wise! Don’t miss out on our monthly blogs.