The Environmental Action Movement Club had its “Bring a Bag, Take a Bag” clothing swap to spread awareness of how fast fashion affects the environment in the A quad on Monday.
Perry Lorn, an LBCC student whose role is club treasurer, helped in the event.
“We want to spread awareness on fast fashion and how it affects the garbage in landfills and third world countries,” Lorn said.
Fast fashion, are designs that come from fashion week, that are designed quickly and manufactured inexpensively, for the mainstream consumer to buy at a lower price.
Some examples of fast fashion retailers are Forever 21, H&M, Zara, and Topshop.
Drew Boulais is in the Environmental Action Movement Club and her role consists of marketing.
“It takes about 400 years for clothing to disintegrate in the landfills. The companies that manufacture the clothing dump all their waste in water sources of third world countries, that leads to children in those countries developing deformities,” said Boulais.
The students in LBCC were supposed to bring a bag of their unwanted clothes and in return they get a bag of used clothes from the club.
“We want to encourage people to boycott consumerism like for Black Friday, be more eco-conscious, spread awareness, and do small changes,” said Boulais.
Not a lot of students brought bags of clothing to the table where the club set up the clothing swap.
“We applied for canopy and more tables but they were not put in in time. We also wanted to bring more signs but we were not able to get them on time,” said Boulais.
Due to the lack of signs, most students were not aware of the event, so they did not bring a bag of clothes, but the club still let them take a piece of clothing.
LBCC student Emma Hall, passing by in the A-Quad didn’t have a bag of clothing to exchange, but got to keep a green bomber jacket from the club event.
“I am getting this for my brother and it is in good condition,” Hall said.
Maricela Garcia an LBCC student and a nursing major whose role in the club is the secretary was helping in the event also.
“We want to reduce the amount of clothes that goes to landfills,” said Garcia.
Jose Ramirez is the vice president of the club, and he helped by bringing in supplies to create more signs.
“We want to encourage sustainable fashion, conscious consumerism, the urgency of climate change, promote awareness about how wasteful it can be and to get the best use of our resources,” Ramirez said.
The clothes being offered were all donated by the students at LBCC. The clothes that were left over from the event will be donated to a homeless shelter or people affected by the California wildfires, according to Boulais.
The Environmental Action Movement Club, which meets every Friday at 10 a.m. in room T-1313, just began this semester and are planning to recreate the clothing swap for next semester.