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A Recycled thought for An Upcycled hope


The memories are fresh of not so long ago that our televisions, radios (if at all one remembers) grew along with us. The house hold furniture sometime outlast us. Leaving our old car or bike for new one was an emotional roller coaster. And to speak of clothes, they were bought in the view that one would wear for years and times even to a generation after. Somehow they even had rebirths, after their death they were reborn as cleaning cloths, doormats and if the creativity knocks us they were mattresses, pillows, decors and what not.


But given the advent of the obvious changes. The production increased, the costs decreased comparative to our incomes and on the other hand the newer products are heavily marketed as something one shouldn't miss, one should own, appealing to our emotions, weaknesses, image perceptions, all the gimmicks we see around. The agenda being simple, keep us engaged, make us addicted, send us on shopping spree and earn profits. And if at all we are conscious of the impact, mislead us (green washing).


For information sake, if I have to say the same facts through stats in fashion industry. It accounts for 10% of all carbon emissions in the world, the second largest contributing industry behind oil, 20-35% of the ocean micro plastics have their origins here (cause even washing some types of fabrics releases micro fibres). Speak of the waste generated 85% of all textiles go to dump each year (cause average bought 60% more garments in 2014 compared to 2000, but wore them half as long). If at all we care for people around us, here is another fact, one in six people in the world work in fashion. However, 93% of surveyed fashion brands do not pay their workers a living wage.


We may not care about water, carbon emissions or whatever the micro plastics are, thinking that it's not impacting me now or the governments will take care or I can withstand cause I got some cash (look at the rise of diseases unheard, natural disasters unseen, raising temperature unfelt.... compare it to just a few years ago). We may not care what happens to the person who does our cloth or any product for the matter or are they being ethically paid, cause we may want them dirt cheap or simply don't mind as long as you have what you want in your hands (for a simple case imagine not being paid for whatever work you did, would you be fine with that?... In reality the conditions are far worse for them). We may go on shopping spree in guise of hobby, emotional highs or wanting to stay relevant drowned in our false images. (nothing to say here, we can look at our own justifications we give and ask if its real or make any sense in the absence of the crowd around, real or imaginary). The list goes on and on.


Despite knowing the above or even more, sometimes one may genuinely feel they are helpless and say what can I do? But questioning this notion I just thought, maybe I cannot change in an instant or maybe cannot transform the whole world, but let me atleast do what I can. So i take my baby steps to sow the seeds of change....Hoping one day this baby blooms into beautiful tree bearing the fruits of hope for the next.


The seed we choose to sow here can be called recycling, circular economy, up cycle or whatever the fancy names are out there, but we choose the name 'aayu'. The word maybe fancy, but the act is not. It is what we had been doing for generations together, the rebirth of our assumed dead clothes. Expanding on the this idea a little bit, I choose to collect the old clothes, unwanted cloth from factories, tailors, etc and give them a new life and put them up for adoption at a willing home.

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