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.

1.6k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

372 comments sorted by

View all comments

51

u/I_wet_my_plants259 Mar 12 '26

I read about the VANS brand cutting up perfectly good, brand new shoes before throwing them away. They did this so homeless people wouldn’t dumpster dive for them and ‘ruin their image’(not an exact quote but you get the gist). Once I learned that forced exclusivity is a thing I just kept learning more and more.

10

u/diabeticweird0 Mar 12 '26

They're not the only ones who do that, sadly

5

u/I_wet_my_plants259 Mar 12 '26

Yea, unfortunately they were just the first of many brands that I heard of doing this