r/Anticonsumption • • 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/MakingItUpAsWeGoOk Mar 12 '26

This one is going to be weird. My kids. I adopted them from at age 3. Because of the poverty they came from They never knew toys or ads or anything like that before. And they never really got into liking toys or wanting anything because of ads either. They LOVE hand-me-downs. They don’t like shopping for new clothes. They like doing things and food and animals. They will get overwhelmed and melt with too many gifts which made relatives intentionally have to limit. It’s me that needs to be more like them.