meanwhile, in county cleveland in teesside, northern england, one-third of families re-wear dirty clothes and  one-quarter are in hygiene poverty, however many feel they are priced out of buying the newest fashion trends or new clothes in general.  

thrift for the future

enter the festival of thrift, an annual celebration of sustainable living that is looking to make a change in the fashion industry and help aid residents in teesside while also aiming to make an impact on a global scale. every september, the festival of thrift erects dozens of stalls for local second-hand clothes sellers and artisans to offer items for sale, in a new chosen location across teesside and cleveland. 

while the festival provides an opportunity for selling and recycling clothes, co-creative director at festival of thrift, tanya steinhauser sees the festival as a chance to educate and inspire those attending. “the idea of the festival is to showcase a really diverse and vibrant program that’s filled with hands-on workshops and innovative performances, interactive installations and provoking talks. everything revolves around sustainability in the smallest and widest senses,” she said.  

in its 12-year lifetime, the festival has grown year-on-year. this has meant that steinhauser and her team have had to find creative ways to engage the festival goers as well as make good use of the site. this year’s event hosted various workshops on how to plant, grow, and harvest your own food. just a 20 yard walk around the ground would show you the ins-and-outs of repurposing old, ripped jeans, as well as  workshops in ancient japanese mending skills to bring broken household items back to life.  

being an epicentre of all things sustainability with so much on offer i asked stienhauser to pick one must-visit for future festivals. “i am quite excited about the future foods activity area,” she said.  “i’m really into growing and cooking from scratch and these workshops  on kind of fermenting things, because obviously food waste and kind of methane waste from food  waste is a big issue as well. so just teaching people hacks again around how to turn  something that might be going off in your fridge to something that you can put in a jar and  eat in a couple of months. but the future food area is kind of, there’s a mural that and i’m  quite excited about that.”

cutting out fast fashion

fast fashion is on the rise, but many don’t know what it is and whether they are endorsing it. in short, fast fashion is all about making clothes quickly and cheaply, usually copying the latest trends. the idea is to get people to buy a lot of new clothes frequently because it’s affordable. but these clothes often don’t last long, and the process can harm the environment and exploit workers. it’s about quantity over quality, leading to a throwaway culture where people buy, wear, and toss things at a rapid pace.

throw-away culture is taking the hot seat right now, from 2000 to 2015 the rates of clothing sales has more than doubled, while the general usage of clothes decreased.

but according to steinhauser this quickening pace of buying, wearing, and discarding is unsustainable. “so we really like a slogan, ‘decades, not seasons,’” she said. steinhauser recommended thinking long term about your wardrobe, investing in higher priced items of higher quality. 

nicer clothes tend to last longer, ultimately cutting down the cost in the long run and mitigating the environmental effects of fast fashion. “the materials used are a really important thing to consider. buying clothes made of natural materials like hemp and staying away from stuff like latex and polyester makes a huge difference,” she said. 

“repairing and renting, even sharing or swapping clothes are all good options,” steinhauser said.  

with fashion so readily available, us consumers have also had a change of mindset on how we buy and use our fashion and for some possibly sleepwalk into the fast fashion culture. steinhauser believes it is also down to us to be proactive and change the way we think about how we buy and consume fashion: “the modern world has given so many kind of other options that just make us not really rethink what we’re doing and that there are alternatives that actually, help us, live towards a more hopeful, hopeful climate future which is something we need to make an active decision to find and utilize.”

oceanites’ research is a pioneer in giving us a glimpse of how climate change is altering the landscape and the behaviors of these species. semi-annually, oceanites publishes the state of the antarctic penguins (soap) report. this provides data for major stakeholders such as the commission for the conservation of antarctic marine living resources (ccamlr) and a foundation for climate crisis awareness and outreach.

oceanites research and unique portrayal of penguins as avatars helps illustrate how humans may or may not adapt when the warming of the planet comes our way.

in the sound bite below, naveen discusses his research into how tourism may be having an impact on antarctica, and the stark damage climate change doing.

i think counting penguins is pretty darn sexy and cool and neat and wonderful!

– ron naveen

in the most recent issue of the soap report, they recorded a total of 6.12 million mating pairs nesting across 740 antarctic sites. the report demonstrates that chinstrap and adélie populations continue to decline, while gentoo populations continue to increase.

a multitude of factors impact the viability of penguin populations. some of which include the availability of food, a safe environment that is free of disease, and the ability to healthily and steadily reproduce. without assurance of all of these factors, the penguins populations may be forced to migrate to different parts of the continent, change their diets, and change where they are finding food.

the penguins really are teaching us, sending us messages, if you will, about how our planet is changing.

– ron naveen

the clip below features naveen describing how he learned to be more open to being educated by the penguins after monitoring four crucial vitals that both humans and penguins share.

after nearly 30 field seasons in antarctica, naveen has been a firsthand witness to the changes of the landscape. in the last 70 years, parts of the antarctic continent have warmed on average significantly, with the antarctic peninsula now 3 degrees fahrenheit warmer than pre-1950 records. this is ahead of the global rate of warming which has risen 2 degrees fahrenheit, since 1850.

this subsequently causes a change in habitat for penguins. on the other hand, this also causes the emergence of new areas that were once inaccessible due to ice formations. and it is ultimately penguins who suffer from this change in environment. by reducing the amount of habitable area for penguins, population will naturally drop, it also means reproduction is hindered too, as there is less room for egg fertilization by the male penguins as the females hunt for food. seeing new areas crop up that were once inaccessible may seem like a good thing on the surface, but it too has a negative impact on the penguins as they have to traverse new unfamiliar environments.

i can walk beaches now that i couldn’t walk 40 years ago. the ice has receded or calved away. i’ve seen huge penguin colonies shrink by a half or more. it’s pretty upsetting, actually.

– ron naveen

here, naveen recounts the huge changes he has seen in his time exploring and researching antarctica and how some penguins are adapting to the new climate, while others are suffering.

despite the mounting challenges that naveen sees antarctica and the penguins facing, he is not giving up on seeking solutions. in the last two years, oceanites has revolutionized their data collection techniques with the help of drone imagery. their current technique uses these images to hand count the penguins. oceanites is in the process of developing an algorithm that will allow computer programs to automatically count the penguins from the images produced by the drone. this technology could allow for a greater amount of data to be uploaded to the organization’s database at a much faster rate, thus making it more readily available to stakeholders who rely on this data.

even with promising breakthroughs in data collection and research, there is still an emotional toll naveen faces. for this lifelong researcher, the penguins make him think of the future for his own children and grandchildren. according to naveen, what we see happening in antarctica is a sobering glimpse of what the future for humans could look like.

below ron speaks on the emotional toll his research has had on him and the difficult changes he has has seen first hand, but also explains what we must do to keep making progress.

i would like everybody to know that being with penguins is very special. it makes your heart thump through your parka. it brings a big smile to your face. smile, think about penguins, think about saving the planet.

– ron naveen

but after decades of work, naveen doesn’t plan on slowing down, and he isn’t the only one. penguin conservation is an effort being led by many people, and the collaborative hard work of naveen and others continues to support the wonderful world of penguins.

this story was produced as part of the planet forward summer seminar in multimedia storytelling.

the brick is known as ‘filter cake,’ and although they are not yet ready to be used in construction, the company is producing up to 100 tons of filter cake bricks each day that would have otherwise been shipped to landfills.

by replacing raw materials with recycled ones, the production of filter cake bricks also means that there will be less need for quarrying, which produces over 15.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year in the uk alone.