DEAR READERS: What is the Climate Change museum? What is Dumpster Dreams? It is our humble attempt to awaken the world as to the hazards of Clothing Pollution, Fast Fashion, and other similar kinds of unnecessary waste.
OUR REQUEST TO YOU, DEAR READER? It involves alerting the world to the dangers–the horrors, really–of clothing pollution, and what we can do about it. The good news is that the change required is not complicated, need not hurt the fashion industry, and is already underway. The bad news: for this, just refer to the statistics posted on the website under "Dumpster Dreams".
Here is my story in a nutshell. Inspired by University of Arizona’s “Tucson Garbage Project”, conducted by the revered Dr. William Rathje (PhD, Harvard), I have been studying trash for quite a while now.
THE BACKSTORY: LOS ANGELES. 1994. (And no, this is not going to be a Dostoyevskian epistle--it’s a five minute read at most.) It was January 17th, exactly 4:30 a.m. And the Earth moved. Many, in the moment, would attribute it to great sex, but in point of fact, the cause was the infamous Northridge Earthquake, a whopping 6.6’er.
As fate would have it, I was awake, in an apartment just a few miles from the epicenter. In a bizarre moment of anal retentive non-panic (even as the floor beneath my feet was still moving), I put my dogs on their leashes, grabbed my Allstate Renter’s Policy from my dropleaf desk, and started filling up the bathtub with water, knowing the city would probably be without water for days. Then I hurried outside.
The next day, curious, I started rifling through the dumpster behind the apartments, even as neighbors panicked and packed and moved the hell out of Dodge. I found, among many other things too lengthy to list here, a faux Ming Vase, bottles of booze, and, (?) some birth control pills. I hauled the vase up to my place (laying it sideways on my mattress, along with other breakables, against aftershocks), started drinking the booze, and as for the birth control pills--well, Hollywood was still Hollywood, plate tectonics notwithstanding.
That was the beginning of a serious dive into the dumpster dreams world of what we, as a nation, throw away. Academia is my "happy place", so the thought of researching the minutia and nuances of trash is oddly comfortable for me. (My credentials below.) Only in the last few years did I start examining in-depth the death cycle of CLOTHING and other cloth goods; quite frankly, it never occurred to me that extremely serviceable used clothing would be thrown away in such vast quantities, with such horrific impact on the environment. Let’s call it “the Garbology of Fashion”. Where I differ from other “dumpster divers” is that my commitment is such that I have collected and archived this clothing, hundreds of pounds of it, in order to teach the world about the terrifyingly destructive nature of these pollutants, particularly the microplastics involved–and also to show “up close and personal” just how beautiful and useful most of this thrown away clothing really is.
Only recently, with no small sense of triumph, I took it to the next level: planning this for years, I have now purchased a building, with plans to use it to display this garbage in a kind of “trash museum”. Please believe me when I say that these clothes are in great shape, and what a variety: coats, jackets, suits, dresses, sweaters, slacks, shirts, neckties, shoes, baby clothes, even bedding and pillows–the list goes on and on. Two truths leap out at the person viewing these items in the museum: first, that these clothes have a lot of life left in them, and could be put to practical use for years to come, and secondly, these clothes, which were rescued from the trash, could and should be recycled, just as we recycle plastic bottles and stacks of newspapers. According to the EPA, only 13% of all clothing is recycled–as opposed to paper, 70% of which is recycled.
My dream is to have Queer Eye (or, OK, any home improvement show that has more panache than I) do the final prepaparation and last touches. . . I want people to walk in and see what looks like the ground floor of Macy's. Or like Harrod's and House of Bijon merged and had a fashionista baby.
But–and we are wrapping up here–if you are reading this, this is what you can do to help save the world (although I don't have to put that, i guess, because if you can read that, well, then obviously. . . )
NONE OF THIS IS FUNNY:
If you will do the following, it will make all the difference. Simply SHARE the link to my website with the folks in your world and, since we want it to go viral, well also please share it with your. . . . (Dare I saw "with your followers"? I dunno, that sounds so. . .Marshall Applewhite meets Charlie Manson with a touch of Jim Jones and David Karesh thrown in).
But aw, hell, share this with your followers. This will accomplish THREE crucial things:
ONE: Your helping us go viral will help to spread the information about one of the worst crises on the planet, a crisis that is growing in leaps and bounds. C'mon. Everybody likes to pick on big oil, coal, frackers, etc. But who wants to go after sweet clothing designers and manufacturers who make us all look so cute right before the shit hits the fan?
TWO: Interest in our cause might make it more possible to get a grant: we don't need or want a lot, but things like a metal outdoor fire escape is necessary for the museum to be legal, in the local building inspector's eyes.
THREE: Increased awareness and interest could help us get volunteers to help hang the clothes, and set everything up–the long neglected real hardwood floors will polish amazingly. BUT. We shore could use us some help. My husband and my combined ages are ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT YEARS OLD. Kinda tired, sometimes. ALSO, we have a combination of only three legs and ten toes between us. Any help would really help.
So there it is. Please, please, throw us a bone.
And help Save The Planet.
OUR REQUEST TO YOU, DEAR READER? It involves alerting the world to the dangers–the horrors, really–of clothing pollution, and what we can do about it. The good news is that the change required is not complicated, need not hurt the fashion industry, and is already underway. The bad news: for this, just refer to the statistics posted on the website under "Dumpster Dreams".
Here is my story in a nutshell. Inspired by University of Arizona’s “Tucson Garbage Project”, conducted by the revered Dr. William Rathje (PhD, Harvard), I have been studying trash for quite a while now.
THE BACKSTORY: LOS ANGELES. 1994. (And no, this is not going to be a Dostoyevskian epistle--it’s a five minute read at most.) It was January 17th, exactly 4:30 a.m. And the Earth moved. Many, in the moment, would attribute it to great sex, but in point of fact, the cause was the infamous Northridge Earthquake, a whopping 6.6’er.
As fate would have it, I was awake, in an apartment just a few miles from the epicenter. In a bizarre moment of anal retentive non-panic (even as the floor beneath my feet was still moving), I put my dogs on their leashes, grabbed my Allstate Renter’s Policy from my dropleaf desk, and started filling up the bathtub with water, knowing the city would probably be without water for days. Then I hurried outside.
The next day, curious, I started rifling through the dumpster behind the apartments, even as neighbors panicked and packed and moved the hell out of Dodge. I found, among many other things too lengthy to list here, a faux Ming Vase, bottles of booze, and, (?) some birth control pills. I hauled the vase up to my place (laying it sideways on my mattress, along with other breakables, against aftershocks), started drinking the booze, and as for the birth control pills--well, Hollywood was still Hollywood, plate tectonics notwithstanding.
That was the beginning of a serious dive into the dumpster dreams world of what we, as a nation, throw away. Academia is my "happy place", so the thought of researching the minutia and nuances of trash is oddly comfortable for me. (My credentials below.) Only in the last few years did I start examining in-depth the death cycle of CLOTHING and other cloth goods; quite frankly, it never occurred to me that extremely serviceable used clothing would be thrown away in such vast quantities, with such horrific impact on the environment. Let’s call it “the Garbology of Fashion”. Where I differ from other “dumpster divers” is that my commitment is such that I have collected and archived this clothing, hundreds of pounds of it, in order to teach the world about the terrifyingly destructive nature of these pollutants, particularly the microplastics involved–and also to show “up close and personal” just how beautiful and useful most of this thrown away clothing really is.
Only recently, with no small sense of triumph, I took it to the next level: planning this for years, I have now purchased a building, with plans to use it to display this garbage in a kind of “trash museum”. Please believe me when I say that these clothes are in great shape, and what a variety: coats, jackets, suits, dresses, sweaters, slacks, shirts, neckties, shoes, baby clothes, even bedding and pillows–the list goes on and on. Two truths leap out at the person viewing these items in the museum: first, that these clothes have a lot of life left in them, and could be put to practical use for years to come, and secondly, these clothes, which were rescued from the trash, could and should be recycled, just as we recycle plastic bottles and stacks of newspapers. According to the EPA, only 13% of all clothing is recycled–as opposed to paper, 70% of which is recycled.
My dream is to have Queer Eye (or, OK, any home improvement show that has more panache than I) do the final prepaparation and last touches. . . I want people to walk in and see what looks like the ground floor of Macy's. Or like Harrod's and House of Bijon merged and had a fashionista baby.
But–and we are wrapping up here–if you are reading this, this is what you can do to help save the world (although I don't have to put that, i guess, because if you can read that, well, then obviously. . . )
NONE OF THIS IS FUNNY:
If you will do the following, it will make all the difference. Simply SHARE the link to my website with the folks in your world and, since we want it to go viral, well also please share it with your. . . . (Dare I saw "with your followers"? I dunno, that sounds so. . .Marshall Applewhite meets Charlie Manson with a touch of Jim Jones and David Karesh thrown in).
But aw, hell, share this with your followers. This will accomplish THREE crucial things:
ONE: Your helping us go viral will help to spread the information about one of the worst crises on the planet, a crisis that is growing in leaps and bounds. C'mon. Everybody likes to pick on big oil, coal, frackers, etc. But who wants to go after sweet clothing designers and manufacturers who make us all look so cute right before the shit hits the fan?
TWO: Interest in our cause might make it more possible to get a grant: we don't need or want a lot, but things like a metal outdoor fire escape is necessary for the museum to be legal, in the local building inspector's eyes.
THREE: Increased awareness and interest could help us get volunteers to help hang the clothes, and set everything up–the long neglected real hardwood floors will polish amazingly. BUT. We shore could use us some help. My husband and my combined ages are ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT YEARS OLD. Kinda tired, sometimes. ALSO, we have a combination of only three legs and ten toes between us. Any help would really help.
So there it is. Please, please, throw us a bone.
And help Save The Planet.