 I made a commitment to myself when I moved back in June that I would only buy clothing secondhand. If I did buy anything new, it would only be after I couldn't find it secondhand in op shops or on depop. On average, we as consumers throw away 60% of our clothes in the first year. In 2020, it was estimated that around 18.6 million tons of clothing ended up in landfill. In Australia, we are the second highest consumers of textiles per capita in the world after the US. The fast fashion sector grew by 19.5% over five years to $1.8 billion Australian in 2017-2018. The clothing industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions and nearly 20% of wastewater. The global fashion industry is generating a lot of greenhouse gases due to the energy used during its production, manufacturing and transportation of the million garments purchased each year. Retail dyes are the world's second largest polluter of water, while pesticides, widely used in cotton farming, contaminate soil and groundwater. With inadequate environmental precautions, these chemicals can leak into waterways and pose massive health risks to farmers and workers and surrounding communities. Additionally, these retailers have been able to drive down clothing prices, while overall costs for retail goods have continued to creep higher and higher, further fueling the consumer demand for cheap clothing. However, with these cheap clothes comes unethical practices. Workers are hugely underpaid and often sourced overseas for cheap labour. Working conditions are often horrible and the quality of clothing produced is often poor to account for the cheap prices. This means that those $5 t-shirts we buy don't last very long, so are thrown out quite quickly and replaced with more cheap but poor quality items. Each Australian consumes an average of 27 kilos of new clothing per year and disposes an average of 23 kilos of clothing to landfill each year. In Australia alone, more than 500,000 tons of textiles and leather ended up in landfill every year. Low cost, low quality garments means that we're buying and disposing of more clothing than ever. 70% of all our clothing is made from plastic, and 70% of plastic microfibers that end up in the ocean are coming from clothing. This is one of the main drivers as to why I started and continue to upshop first. I like the idea of giving something a second life. I even buy a lot of my cooking equipment and supplies from upshops, such as glass bottles and jars to store my dry ingredients and homemade plant milks in. Plus, upshopping saves me a ton of money and I often find really good brands for a really cheap price. This past year alone I've bought secondhand I Love Billy sneakers for $8 Australian that would usually cost around $80 new. A denim jacket for $6 Australian that, when bought in store or online, are priced anywhere between $60 to $110 new. Even on Depop, they go from anywhere between $15 to $30 secondhand. A straw beach hat I bought for $2 Australian, which is often priced to $20 new. Exercise shorts by the brand Champion for around $5 and priced at $30 new. A white sum address from the brand Dotty for $6 priced at around $40 new and so many more items. My favorite upshops on the Gold Coast to visit are Vinnies, Burley upshop and Orbit upshop. Upshopping can be more limiting in the items of clothing available as well as the sizing and can take a few goes to find the specific items you're looking for. This is because you can only pick from what they have in stock at the time so it can be quite limiting. When this happens I look on Depop as you can type in exactly what you're looking for and find a wider range of items to choose from. However, I'm someone who doesn't mind browsing through the upshops on my way somewhere and sometimes I'll stumble across a really great item this way. Overall, I try to live as minimalistic as possible and only buy items I really need to prevent me from throwing out more later on once my clothing has worn out. Once my clothing has reached the end of its life, I try and donate as much as I can that can actually be worn again but the items that aren't salvageable I either look for recycling programs for particular items like joggers, flip flops and things like that but unfortunately for most of our clothing we don't actually have any programs put in place to recycle these old items so most end up being thrown away. I'm hoping this changes moving forward as the world moves to a more circular economy and this is why I upshop. I hope you guys enjoyed today's video. Please let me know if you guys go up shopping as well or what your favorite upshops are I'd love to hear them. Thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you and I hope that you have a wonderful day. Bye.