Andrea Cleary: Our unsustainable choices are going out of fashion like there’s no tomorrow

Fast-fashion retailers try to disguise environmental damage with organic cotton and buy-back schemes, but we can each make a real difference by turning to second-hand and repurposed clothes

The small impact we make each time we choose to buy second-hand clothes is a drop in the ocean, but our collective action in choosing not to spend our wages in fast-fashion stores will at least indicate that we won’t stand for this ecological abuse any longer

When I use my refillable water bottle, refuse plastic cutlery or run the washing machine on a lower heat setting, I don’t really think I’m “saving the planet”. I’ve been through too many IPCC reports by now to think that remembering the Bag For Life is really going to have a major impact on the climate catastrophe. Still, I do my little part because if enough of us do, it tells the actual powers that ...