SATURDAY, October 31 saw the Ipswich Climate Action Group (ICAG) host a day of sustainability and fashion, culminating with the afternoon highlight being the third annual Trashion Parade.
Following last year’s success, this year proved bigger and better, full of fashion, creativity and entertainment, and it’s events like this that showcase, in a creative way, the growing problem of textile waste and highlights the unfortunate cost to the environment by the fashion industry.
In 2024 alone, Australia saw a staggering 220,000 tonnes of clothing ending up in landfill. That’s 420 kilograms every single minute, with 6000 pieces of clothing discarded every 10 minutes throughout the world, with Australia being potentially the worst offender.
But by buying less, reusing, recycling, repairing, swapping, upcycling, hand me down, and hand me up, then we can all do our bit towards this unfortunate growing concern. A simple fact is that just by wearing clothes twice as long, we can cut related fashion emissions by up to 44 per cent.
Hosting to a crowd of near 200, the Trashion Parade was focused on sustainability, where over 40 entries and their creators, participated, showcasing juniors creations, wearable art, thrifted clothing on a budget, outfits from recycled materials, discarded items to promote upcycling and reduce textile waste and of course a special category for Halloween.
The brainchild of the Ipswich Climate Action Group, its President Val Wheatley said the organisers hoped to make the general public aware of the concerning facts and stagging environmental issues caused by fashion.
“We hope that through art, we can reach a larger audience and hopefully by teaching and educating people, that making even small changes in their routine, can make a big difference,” she said.
At present this is the only fashion event held in Ipswich that has an important environmental message.
If you want to know more about The Ipswich Climate Action Group and how you can contribute towards ‘making a difference” or about the Trashion Parade you can email Val directly at valwheatley@bigpond.com.
