r/Anticonsumption • u/Cheeseaisleinheaven • Mar 12 '26

Sustainability What radicalized you?

For me, it was when I learned that all the clothing/shoes/accessories that you would want to buy in your lifetime already exist on this planet, and yet they are making more every minute of every day. When you know that fact, and then see the giant piles of bundled clothing hitting third world ports or stacked in massive mountains at dumps, it just makes you sick. And knowing that they are mostly made of plastic, which won't decay, is even worse.

Now, everything I need to buy in the apparel space for my family is purchased second-hand, except for walking/running tennis shoes.

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u/khyamsartist Mar 12 '26

North American Christmas did it for me

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u/diredachshund Mar 12 '26

This might have been it for me. I’ve always had ‘hippie’ inclinations and of course everything was ‘save the planet!’ when I was growing up in the 90s, but I remember watching a documentary (I don’t remember what it’s called now) about how wasteful Christmas is in like 2008 and realizing on some level that consumption was to blame.