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Young people are buying fast fashion, knowing its effect on the planet

Young people are buying fast fashion, knowing its effect on the planet

81 per cent of young people admit to buying clothing from fast fashion outlets despite being aware of the impact it has on the climate.

A new survey from Youth Work Ireland also found that almost half of teenagers wear a piece of clothing more than 50 times.

Ailsing Moloney is the Chairperson of Youth Work Ireland's Tipperary's Junior Board.

Speaking to Beat News, she says social media has a big impact on fast fashion:

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"I don't think it's intentional it's just tyhat the styles are changing so often, so people want to keep up with the next trend.

Say, on Instagram if something is trendy one week and someone buys say a dress and they only wear this dress once or twice and then they throw it away, it goes to a landfill then and then they go out and buy something new again.

So, it's just a never ending cycle of consumerism."

Youth Work Ireland has launched a Sustainable Fashion Rescue Pack to help tackle fast fashion.

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Ailsing Moloney says there's lots of ways to get use of of old clothes;

"First, we can reduce the amount of clothing we purchase, one person doesn't need 25 hoodies or 12 pairs of jeans, it's just a choice a person makes to way to keep up with a trend.

Also secondly, we can reuse our clothes, instead of wearing them once or twice we can maybe do them up a bit if they're gone out of 'trend' so that we can get more wear out of them, we shouldn't just throw out a piece of clothing that we've only worn once."

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