Zero Waste Blog

Fast Fashion in Focus

Happy 2023! Zero Waste Yukon has been a bit sleepy in the last year, but we’re back up and running and looking forward to another year of Zero Waste education, outreach and inspiration.

For this year, we’ve decided to narrow our focus to a specific area – and we’ve chosen that focus to be textiles. While we may do other things unrelated to textiles, this focus will allow us to be more strategic about the projects we run and the content we create.

Why textiles? This theme was in part inspired by the artist residency program we piloted in the summer of 2022. The first artist, Janet Patterson was appalled when she heard that the average Canadian discards 70 items of clothing per year. She used her time in the Depot to make this data tangible by dressing mannequins in 70 items of clothing each. The end result was that her mannequins were weighed down to the point of being bulky, clumsy and unmoveable — a poignant metaphor for how material possessions, while to a degree necessary and useful, can also overwhelm us.

This focus was also inspired by Love2Thrift’s presentation at Yukon Government’s Recycling Summit in November of 2022. Love2Thrift concluded their presentation with a call to action to pledge to buy no new clothing for a year.

In 2023, Zero Waste Yukon and Love2Thrift are partnering take this pledge a step further: sign our pledge to commit to buying no new clothing until 2024! Send it in to info@zerowasteyukon and at the end of the year, we’ll send you a short survey asking how you did, what your challenges were, and how it changed your perspective on your clothing habits.
By participating, you will be entered in a draw for one of the following prizes!

•  2 adult admission tickets to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve
•  Yukon Refillery gift certificate
•  Gift certificate for Lumel glassblowing workshop for 2

Sign up for our pledge here.

Still sound daunting? Here are some resources that might help:

Repair

•  Renueva

Local Thrift Stores:

•  Love2Thrift Whitehorse Community Thrift Store
•  Changing Gear (used sporting goods store)
•  Raven’s Reuseful
•  And Again Consignment Store
•  Little Sapling Consignment (babies/toddlers/children clothing)

 Yukon Free stores:

•  Carcross
•  Champagne
•  Dawson City
•  Deep Creek
•  Destruction Bay
•  Haines Junction
•  Marsh Lake
•  Mount Lorne
•  Ross River
•  Tagish

Other:

•  Facebook: Whitehorse Buy-and-Sell pages
•  Kijiji

We are also working on a roster of events, workshops and other content that we will roll out throughout 2023. Keep an eye on our socials and website for announcements!