People sort through textile and plastic waste at the Dandora dumpsite, one of the largest landfills in East Africa. Allan Muturi/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration . Mary Fleming was on holiday in Kenya when she saw it: a mound of secondhand clothes heaped by a river, the pile so vast and unruly it was spilling into the water.
The sight shocked her. At home in Ireland she was a passionate shopper and bought a new outfit almost every weekend. Now, in East Africa, she was seeing the consequence of fast fashion and mass consumption.
A decade later Fleming, now 34, is leading a campaign to prevent waste by swapping, reusing, repairing and repurposing clothes under the inimitable exhortation: “Because secondhand is feckin’ grand.” “In some communities there is still a stigma about secondhand clothes and not wanting to be seen to be poor. We’re trying to change perceptions.
” She is the founder of Change Clothes , a nonprofit that hosts a swap shop in Dublin and runs pop-up outlets and workshops across Ireland . It lets people rent, exchange and buy used clothes and gives tutorials in mending and upcycling frayed garments. “Most people wouldn’t know how to patch a hole.
Once they figure it out they’re delighted with themselves,” says Fleming. “It’s so simple it’s criminal that it’s not better known.” Change Clothes outgrew its base in Crumlin,.
