USED for GOOD

If your home is cluttered and you’re always spending money on purchases you don’t really love or need, remember that ‘trash’ can very readily be ‘treasure’

- Sarah Rodrigues

The guilt around buying new clothes has long been almost the stuff of comedy, with jokes around hiding receipts, fibbing about prices and passing off brand new outfits with a casual "What, this? Oh, I've had it ages." But in recent years, the true cost of constant wardrobe updates has been thrust ever more into the spotlight, with figures demonstrating, alarmingly, just how much of an impact the making, buying and disposal of fashion has upon the planet. For example: .

The fashion industry is the second highest user of water worldwide, producing 20 percent of global water waste (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 2018)

More than a third of the microplastics that enter the oceans come from wearing and washing our clothes (International Union for Conservation of Nature)

10,000 items of clothing are sent to landfill every five minutes (keepbritaintidy.org)

More than 90% of people employed by fast fashion brands are paid less than a minimum wage.

Yet who can deny the thrill of a new purchase, or the fun of getting loads of compliments when you wear something for the first time? As sobering as these insights into the impact of the industry are, who wants to give that up? The good news is that we don't have to - the answer doesn't lie in not shopping at all, but in changing the way that we shop.