Manea Senior College Year 12 students Sara Manuel and Keira Dronow host free market to highlight textile waste

A pair of Year 12 students at Manea Senior College recently did their part to highlight the impact textile waste is having on the environment. Sara Manuel and Keira Dronow are taking part in a United Nations course at the school where students create projects around one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The pair picked goal No.12, ‘ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns’, and focused on the amount of waste in the textile industry. The students hosted a free market at the school on Thursday, June 23, where students and teachers were able to swap clothing and accessories that normally would be given to op shops or thrown out into landfill. Ms Manuel said it was important for young people to understand the impacts of fast fashion — defined as cheap, trendy clothing which is mass-produced and often cuts environmental corners. “Especially with our generation because online shopping and fast fashion are becoming more prominent and there is more textile waste in landfill,” she said. “What we are trying to promote is how we can trade with each other instead of putting things in op shops.” Ms Manuel said the idea was created by a group of Year 12s in 2021, and had started this in a smaller space with 300 items of clothing, but this year had more than 500 items. The pair said their next goal would be to collaborate with their neighbours at the Edith Cowan University South West Campus and run a similar market there. Ms Dronow said she encouraged people who were looking for new clothes to research the ethical standards of where they were buying them. She said only 15 per cent of clothes at op shops were sold in Australia, with the rest going to developing countries, such a Ghana. “It just piles up, because it is not necessarily good clothing either, so they have to burn it, which obviously has negative side effects,” Ms Dronow said. “It is a big problem and we don’t really see it because it all gets sent away.” The pair have even made colourful mats out by sewing and crocheting unwanted clothing together to portray the idea things can have a second life. “We wanted to promote the idea that you don’t have to just chuck things away, even if you don’t want it,” Ms Dronow said.