Eighty percent of everything that you buy ends up in a landfill or as waste within six months.

As awareness about the relationship between consumption habits and the environment increases, the Madison community leads the way with innovative solutions.

ReThreads, the buy-sell-trade clothing store on State Street, serves local patrons who come in so they don’t have to buy new clothes. Students and community members look at it as a way of sharing products.

It is estimated that around 25-35 percent of people do the trade option and use the money to buy clothes directly from the store. It’s a really great way to save money, be fashionable and to be green at the same time.

Resale shops, vintage clothing stores and retailers selling eco-friendly clothing are all over Madison. Take advantage of the great eco-friendly resources the Madison community already offers to help you reduce your carbon footprint.

Check out Swashion’s Green Living page for store locations and information. Happy Swashing!

Combating consumer culture

Stepping back from a serious problem often puts things into perspective. Addressing the underlying problems driving America’s consumer culture is one of the single-most important things our country can do to facilitate societal change. Fundamental behavioral changes must be made as a collective whole in order to reign in America’s hyper-consumption, which will ultimately help preserve the environment.

If nearly 80 percent of what we buy ends up in a landfill, then why do we buy so much? Well, if you compare out current situation to the past, the amount of stuff you need to go about your day has dramatically increased. More importantly, however, is the consumer-culture and Western lifestyle we have socialized within.

Western culture has a fixation with individualism—a deeply rooted cultural way of life that is perpetuated by persuasive marketing.
Our cultural heritage tells us that you need to go out there and do things for yourself. Our culture tells us that I, as an American, can accomplish anything if I put my mind to it.

Advertising encourages this way of life to an extent. A lot of advertising can make us feel inadequate or evokes a desire to buy products in order to be satisfied. The repetition of these messages overtime can affect our perceptions of what is normal.
When the holiday season rolls around every year, nothing really changes if you think about it. For one month you are asked to think about a few things you would like as gifts when in reality you’ve had a wish-list of “stuff” you seemingly needed all year long.

Recognizing the forces that drive consumer culture and hyper-consumption can help combat it. Reversing these attitudes will in turn help the environment. Recognizing the consequences of individual action and learning to collectively pool resources together through sharing is a major catalyst for change. Setting examples on a small scale and adopting a collectivist mindset may yield changes beyond Madison.
Maybe this change will come some day and maybe it won’t. One thing is certain, however.

Consumption does not correlate with happiness, according to Juliet Schor. This realization, on a societal level, may one day be the ultimate solution. Spread the word and happy Swashing!

Common Threads Recycling Program

Swashing is great but what should you do when your clothes are too old and ratty to wear or trade?

Patagonia's recycling program "Common Threads" is the perfect solution (at least for your patagonia clothes). According to their site, "we can transform your unusable garments into new clothing, which gets us closer to a long-standing company goal of taking full responsibility for every product we make."

If you have Patagonia clothes - keep this in mind when it's time to get rid of them:

Step 1) Wash them

Step 2)

Mail them to the Patagonia Service Center at "Patagonia Service Center ATTN: Common Threads Recycling Program, 8550 White Fir Street, Reno NV 89523"

or

Drop them off at a Patagonia retail store nearest you

Looking to recycle clothing that isn't Patagonia? Check out this article from The Good Human.

FatCow Awards Green Innovators With Fun Prizes

FatCow is a leading provider of domain names and web hosting for environmental and green websites. In a recent giveaway, FatCow gave away eco-friendly means of transportation including a grand prize of a smart Coupe to inthecorners.org and David Campbell.

Mini Swamy a TMCnet contributor quoted Sophia Nobrega a FatCow manager. "We're always interested in creating a fun and exciting hosting experience for our customers. Giving away prizes is one of our favorite things to do," she said. "But this year, our giveaway was about more than just prizes. It was about the environment and the impact we have on it. We wanted to take another small step towards protecting it."

If you have a green website of your own, did you get your domain name through FatCow?

How do you feel about their giveaway? Personally if Swashion purchases an official domain name it will be through FatCow.

Learn more about FatCow's winner at their website here: http://inthecorners.org/

Statistics Don't Lie!

Check out these fast facts on consumption relating to various goods, services and resources we use. Statistics like these really put hyper-consumption into perspective...

• Half the world lives on less than two dollars a day - source:GlobalWatch.
   
• 12 percent of the world’s population lives in North America and Western Europe and accounts for 60 percent of private consumption spending, but a third of humanity that lives in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 3.2 percent.WorldWatch Institute 
• In 1950, the global population was 2.6 billion people. We had 53 million cars- which works out to be one car for every 50 persons. Today, there are over 6 billion people and 500 million cars-more than one car for every dozen inhabitants. Sierra Club (lots of fascinating facts on that page)
   
• If the Chinese consume resources in 2031 at a level that Americans do now, grain consumption per person there would climb from around 600 pounds today to around 2000 pounds needed to sustain a typical western diet. This would equate to 1,352 million tons of grain, equal to two thirds of all the grain harvested in the world in 2004. OneWorld 
• In 1950, Americans consumed 144 pounds of meat and poultry per person on average. In 2007, that shot up to 222 pounds. Factory Farming Campaign.
   
• Global oil production is currently about 81 million barrels a day and is predicted to fall to 39 million barrels a day by 2030 due to diminishing resources (see Peak oil). Source: Energy Watch Group via Guardian 
• In 2003, gasoline consumption per capita in North America was 1,593.1 litres per person, whereas in developing countries it was 59.2 litres per person. World Resources Institute.
   
• Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in November of 1958 were at 313.34 parts per million. In March 2009, levels were at 387.41 parts per million, an increase of over 20%. Carbonify.com 
• Industrialized nations, representing only 20% of the world's population, consume 87 percent of the world’s printing and writing papers and global production in the pulp, paper and publishing sector is expected to increase by 77% from 1995 to 2020. The pulp and paper industry is the single largest consumer of water used in industrial activities in OECD countries and is the third greatest industrial greenhouse gas emitter, after the chemical and steel industries. Co-op America 
• The average American buys 53 times as many products as someone in China and one American's consumption of resources is equal valent to that of 35 Indians. Over a lifetime, the typical American will create 13 times as much environmental damage as the average Brazilian. Sierra Club via CNN 
• South Australia is the driest state in the driest continent in the world, yet it's water consumption is 445 litres per day per person (2001/2002) according to Environment SA. Australia's average per person water consumption was 493 litres per day.  In the USA, average water consumption per person in 2008 was 575 litres daily. China's daily per capita consumption in 2006 was 86 litres according to Data 360 
• The world's annual consumption of plastic materials has increased from around 5 million tonnes in the 1950s to nearly 100 million tonnes today. WasteOnline 
• The USA's electricity consumption per capita is 12,343.098 kWh per year and 71.4 % of that electricity is generated via fossil fuel. Australia's consumption is 10,252.432 kWh per capita, with 90.8 % fossil fuel dependent. German consumption is 6,366.428 kWh per capita with only 61.8 % of that fossil fuel generation dependent.NationMaster 
• Between 2000 and 2005 around 10 million acres of forests were lost per year in South America, which incorporates the might Amazon forest. The land is cleared primarily for cattle ranches and soybean plantations. Only 20 - 25% of  Brazilian soybeans are used domestically; most is exported overseas for use in food, textiles and increasingly - cattle feed. Choices Magazine and Monga Bay 
• The food we eat now typically travels between 1,500 and 3,000 miles from farm to our dinner plate (also known as food miles). The distance had increased by up to 25 percent between 1980 and 2001. Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University
  
• To grow a pound of wheat requires around 130 gallons of virtual water. For meat, depending on the type - multiply that by five to ten times. Water Footprint
  
• Global coal consumption in 1980 was 4,129.498 million short tons. In 2006, it was 6,743.786 million short tons. Coal consumption is projected to grow at about 2.5% per year over the next 20 years.US Department of Energy

American consumption and waste

The Egyptians built breathtaking pyramids, the Roman Empire made its mark by constructing the historic Coliseum and Americans—we erected the Mall of America.

While shop-until-you-drop mentalities may support a capitalist economy, Americans' excessive consumption negatively affects the environment. The more you consume, the more you have to produce. Seems simple, right?

According to the Clean Air Council's website, the average person in the United States creates 4.39 pounds of trash daily, which when added together, is enough to fill 63,000 garbage trucks every day. What is more, Annie Leonard's "The Story of Stuff Project" indicates the average American spends 3-4 times as many hours shopping as their European counterpart.

The United States currently constitutes five percent of the World's population, but consumes over 30 percent of the resources, according to the World Bank Development Indicators.

The long-term environmental impact of consuming at these high levels is largely unpredictable, but many consider the massive amounts of waste accumulating at increasing rates to be virtually unsustainable.

What is more, the number of possessions each individual America needs and wants has increased dramatically in the past 100 years. As emerging world powers like India and China continue industrializing, their material desires will start to look very similar to ours here in the United States. Still seem simple?

Well, yeah, it is simple. America's consumption habits are excessive, impulsive and often unjustified. Societal change is needed to combat and reverse the environmental consequences resulting from hyper-clothing consumption. As Juliet Schor suggests, downshift!

Scale-back your consumption and briefly remove yourself from the situation when you feel compelled to purchase new. Better yet, remove yourself from the situation, log in to Swashion and save some money while reducing your carbon footprint.

Not convinced? Here is a video lecture from consumption critic Chris Jordan. Jordan puts American consumption into perspective with startling statistics and creative photography. Be disturbed and enjoy.

What steps have you taken to reduce your consumption? Can you think of a time when consumerism has negatively affected you? We want to know. Swashion is not just a community closet; rather, it is a community resource educating Madison, Wis. about consumerism in order to drive change that will help save our planet.

Happy Hannukah!

Hanukkah is also known as the Festival of Lights. The holiday celebrates the victory of the Jewish Maccabean revolt against a mighty Syrian Greek army in the year 165 BCE. When the Maccabees went to rekindle the holy light in their Great Temple, they found only enough oil to burn for a single night. It was here that the Hanukkah miracle occurred. The oil in the tiny cruet burned for eight straight days and nights. Hanukkah is unique among holidays in that its liturgy urges the consumption of oil, in celebration of the Hanukkah miracle.


As today is the first night of Hannukah, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Hannukah and urge everyone to be proactive in our move towards collective consumption, and decreasing hyper-consumption in the community. As a great Hannukah gift, don't go out and buy your friends and family more clothes and accessories, give them a gift that will better the community and connect them in a social way to others who are doing the same.


BEST NEW HANNUKAH GIFT OF THE SEASON: an invite to Swashion!