Serving Looks and Seedlings at the Fall 2025 Swap

Come read about fast fashion and how we can be sustainable through clothing swaps!

Do you get your siblings hand-me-downs , or switch your hiking boots for your mom’s trail runners sometimes? Yes? Congratulations, you’re part of a long practice of clothing swapping!

The communal tendencies of humans has had us swapping clothes since their creation as a form of familial closeness, in response to times of economic destitution, and historically as community and cultural practices amongst Indigenous, Black and immigrant communities. Today, we practice swapping clothes through friend hangouts or community events to reflect on and put action to our commitment to sustainability.

(image description: a person with shoulder-length dark hair is carrying a white bag on their shoulder and looking through pants. On their left is another person in a grey hoodie with a blue bag on their shoulder, also browsing clothes.)

Green Venture hosted our Fall Clothing Swap and Seedling Sale on August 20th, 2025 at EcoHouse. We received about 430 donations of clothing items and shared them with the other gently used garments that we had left over from previous swaps. EcoHouse was filled with community members who came to find new wardrobe articles, and buy native perennial seedlings as well as winter-hardy crops for their fall gardens. Laughter, games and environmental care filled the air as folks browsed the selections of maternity wear, children’s clothing, youth picks and formal wear, amongst many others. Of the 900~ items we had, nearly all were taken by community members and volunteers to add to their closets for the changing seasons. That’s 900+ clothing items saved from landfills and given another go-around at life! In addition to that count, a number of good quality clothes left over from the swap were gathered according to identified needs by shelters and community resource centres, and donated to serve Hamilton’s support network.

You might wonder why an environmental organization cares about clothing swaps beyond a lens of intersectionality. The reality is that the fashion industry has been doing harm for a long time to the environment. Fast fashion, a term referring to the rapid production of clothing that adheres to short-lived trends, has taken over the fashion industry and become a major source of pollution and unsustainable practices.. Companies are no longer prioritizing quality and durability in their products. Rather, they’re (literally) banking on the clothes they make falling apart or falling out of fashion so that people will spend more money.

Predictably, this practice has many negative effects on the environment. To name just a few, fibre production demands freshwater use that then makes it unusable for habitats or human consumption, the processes for commercial dyeing and finishing still rely on fossil fuels, and about 85% of all textiles end up in dumps at the end of each year as trends die and poorly made fabrics fray. Cutting back how much we consume through swapping what we have, repairing what is damaged, and sharing with our community, is the antidote to fast fashion.

So thank you for joining us at our Fall Clothing Swap or previous Swaps before! Initiatives like these (which happen twice a year, so keep an eye on our socials and newsletter for the next one!) are ways that we can practice sustainability, connect with each other and tend to our own gardens.

See you at the next one!