Sustainable Spooky Season

by Courtney Wight ’26 on October 9, 2025

Opinion

As October rolls around and fall begins, I get excited about all of the fun activities to do in the upcoming months. Fall’s best holiday, Halloween, is always one of my favorite times of the year as people get together to celebrate and let loose with a variety of creative costumes. My mom still has most of our childhood Halloween costumes in the basement, just in case we ever need them. However, now many people are planning multiple costumes and buying brand new items for each outfit, which they never intend to wear again.

This issue with Halloween costumes highlights the more serious underlying problem of fast fashion. A majority of clothing companies have shifted from creating quality products to producing cheaper and poorer quality items to hop onto trends before they change. Fast fashion is extremely bad for a variety of reasons, including from an environmental standpoint and a labor rights perspective.

The fashion industry as a whole is responsible for roughly 10 percent of global carbon emissions. From 2000–2014, clothing production doubled, with these problems continuously getting worse, resulting in over 90 million tons of textile waste every year. Additionally, fast fashion clothing is bought with the intention of wearing it a few times before discarding it; therefore, less than 1 percent of fashion textiles are recycled and many of these items end up in landfills.

To combat this growing issue, governments have started to propose potential solutions to minimize the negative impacts. France has been the first major nation to acknowledge fast fashion as a major issue and enact legislation to penalize companies for selling fast fashion. Additionally, the state of New York has proposed legislation to attack the other main con of fast fashion, which is exploitative labor conditions. The proposed bill would require clothing companies to disclose their supply chain in an effort to encourage companies to use properly sourced labor and reduce their excess waste in the supply chain.

Nonetheless, legislation can’t change everything. Ultimately, it is up to consumers to better educate themselves on the impacts of their actions. Social media has created a culture of constant consumption of goods, including clothing, leaving many feeling a constant need to buy and shop more. With the rising costs of necessities and a potential for a recession, consumers need to avoid falling for micro-trends and purchasing cheap, poorly made clothing that they will only wear twice.

Now, I’m not saying don’t have more than one costume, or not to buy clothes online anymore. I just ask that students take a second thought before buying more things online. Are there fun costumes you can do from pieces you already own? Do you have any existing items, either at home or from your friends, that you can wear instead of buying something new? Can you and your friends take a trip to the thrift store or Spirit Halloween to buy items in person, instead of online? Small changes like these matter, and it is necessary to change our mindsets regarding fast fashion for real progress to be made.

Making Earth Day Every Day

by Kaelin Ferland '23 on April 20, 2023
Opinion Staff

Opinion

Why We Need to Celebrate This Holiday Year-round

The 1960s was a critical decade for environmental policy in the United States, serving as the first time politicians began to recognize how humans play a large role in environmental destruction. Fortunately, this led to important policy changes and legislation to protect our planet. However, this relationship between human activity and ecological degradation was something already well-known among environmentalists prior to the 1960s.

Environmentalists including Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Gaylord Nelson were essential figures in the environmental movement. Carson’s Silent Spring is arguably one of the most influential texts of the movement. Published in 1962, it revealed the dangers of D.D.T. and pesticide use on both human and wildlife health, accusing chemical companies of hiding these dangerous side effects from the public. The publication resulted in the ban of D.D.T. across the country. With his Sand County Almanac published in 1949, Leopold introduced the term “land ethic” for the first time, an idea that humans need to coexist with nature, rather than continue to dominate and exploit it. This message is still prevalent today, as decades later, it seems as though we still have yet to adopt such a vision.

In 1969, environmentalist and Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the idea for Earth Day, and in 1970, it was celebrated for the first time on April 22. Earth Day was a turning point for environmental awareness and advocacy in the U.S. The same year in 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was formed, as well as the National Environmental Education Act and the Clean Air Act. In the next three years, the U.S. would also go on to establish the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. The first Earth Day was an environmental breakthrough, resulting in some of the most important environmental legislation we have to date.

Still, just over 50 years later, it seems as though we have forgotten the importance of Earth Day and what it means as we continue to act in unsustainable ways that harm our planet. Every year, over one billion people in over 193 countries celebrate Earth Day. Imagine how much of an impact we could make if this many people treated every day like Earth Day.

From what the March 2023 I.P.C.C. report explains, it’s clear that we need people advocating for environmental change year-round. According to the report, we have already caused our planet to warm an additional 1.1 degrees Celsius, dangerously nearing the 1.5 degrees Celsius scientists constantly warn is the tipping point.

What happens if temperatures increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius? In terms of biodiversity, 14 percent of species could be threatened with extinction, and a loss of up to 90 percent of coral reefs is also expected. Additionally, 950 million people could start experiencing drought as well as extreme temperatures, with 45–58 days of the year likely to surpass 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Flooding is also expected to affect 24 percent more people with this increase.

We need to change our habits every day of the year, not just on Earth Day. We cannot combat climate change and other environmental issues by reflecting on our lifestyles and advocating for the planet only one day a year. It’s our responsibility to not only make sustainable choices each day but to push for environmental policy that is crucial for mitigating climate change. If we want to live on a planet that is equitable, sustainable, just, and habitable, this is something we have to do all year.