Circular fashion gains space in Ecuador, there are physical stores, on social networks and even an app that contribute to the environment and the domestic economy.
The existence of flea markets is not something new in Ecuador, but the sale of second-use clothing is beginning to appear as a trend in the country with a different modality that offers profits to those who offer it, to the promoter, to the consumer and additionally to the planet. affected by the fast fashion industry that according to data from the United Nations (UN) is responsible for 20% of total water waste worldwide and is the second cause of global pollution.
Karen Rojas, founding partner of the Niftymark app together with Apricot León, explains that sustainable or circular fashion businesses are common abroad, but as a concept, and particularly in an application, it is new in the country and still requires momentum.
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His project started in 2019 and at the end of 2020 the Niftymark platform was launched. In it you can find second-use garments and also new ones with or without a tag. He does not receive products on consignment, clarifies Karen, who explains that the seller shares his closet and the interested party selects, places in a cart and pays. They are enabled for all forms of payment. “The money is not immediately released to the seller, we coordinate with our allied mail to remove the garments from the seller’s hands and it is transferred to the buyer’s address, who from that moment has 48 hours to confirm if what he received is what was published,” publicly qualify the seller on the platform and the funds are automatically released to the original owner of the clothing minus the application commission ”.
On the NiftyMark website it is noted that they have a 22% service commission on the amount of what is published and for each effective sale. For Karen, it is a way to start generating income for those who have a closet with unused clothes and benefit people who buy a garment because the cost is up to 70% less than what you will find in a store of new items.
In addition to the profit obtained as a platform, the benefit for the environment is added, considering that the less demand is less manufacturing and pollution. According to the publication of the research toxic stitches, by Greenpeace, each year 80,000 million articles of clothing are produced and each inhabitant of the planet consumes at least eleven of them.
At the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in 2019 before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the textile industry was released according to which the clothing industry uses 93,000 million cubic meters each year. of water, with which five million people could live.
Every year half a million tons of microfiber are thrown into the sea, which is equivalent to 3 million barrels of oil, he notes, among other effects.
The fashion industry is responsible for 20% of total water waste globally, adds the UN. Isabella Pazmiño, a young woman dedicated to the business of circular fashion, affirms that with this type of trade everyone wins.
Isabella is the owner of @babybin_ec, a second-use store, on Instagram, which basically receives garments and items for babies, children and maternity on consignment. The idea arose in the midst of a pandemic, when checking his closet he observed clothes that he would not wear again and looked for places to market them, although he found several, he was awakened by the bug of creating his own business to obtain income.
Once @babybin_ec was created, Isabella began to investigate and found herself immersed in circular fashion, because when she was studying in the United States, she bought second-use clothes and handbags for economic convenience rather than to learn about the circular fashion on which her business is focused today. . I was getting an item for less than half the price of a new one and in pretty much the same condition.
In the research “I came across this impressive reality that fast fashion is really very harmful to the environment, from when clothes are dyed, poorly paid workers, to the way the products arrive at the store … somewhere I read ‘if you want to know what the color of the next season is, look at the colors of the rivers of China’ … I still do not consider myself an environmentalist, I am a mini-environmentalist, I am trying, I am on my way to reduce my footprint of carbon ”, he says and acknowledges that there are habits to change in society, among which he mentions not using plastic covers and normalizing the purchase of second-use clothes.
Before I used to tell my mom I want to leave a footprint in this world, now I don’t want to leave a footprint, I don’t want to leave a carbon footprint, that’s my way now, he emphasizes.
He agrees with Karen Rojas in the sense that there is still a way to fight the stigma of buying second-hand clothes. The women millennial Y centennial, who have left the country and returned, are the ones who have accepted this business model the most and value it for its economy and care for the planet.
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Both speak of the need to normalize the purchase of used clothing as it is done in the United States or Australia, where stores of this type are common.
In Ecuador, these initiatives are beginning to gain recognition that drives them to grow. Karen Rojas happily mentions the mention they received from the Green Latin America Awards and today, December 15, 20221, they receive the seed capital of $ 13,500 that they won in the Fonquito 3000 call, part of which they aspire to invest in marketing to make it more known the application.
Everyone wins with circular fashion stores, insists Isabella. In her case, a mother who delivers a garment, baby carriage or other item signs a contract in which she agrees to return 60% of the cost at which it will be sold, whoever buys it obtains a well-cared for product at a good price, there are three people with an economic benefit. And the planet with a little more air than a highly polluting industry.
For Isabella, the circular economy is a necessity “we have to learn to reuse our resources, to reuse what we already have instead of producing, producing and producing without thinking that this is not going to have an impact, now they do things so that they end in the trash, instead of making something that can be reused or fixed for use. “
Cecilia Torres, from the NGO Mares del Ecuador, comments that there are also designers who change the image of a used garment and turn it into a unique piece, despite the fact that according to Karen Rojas this makes the product more expensive, but in the case of its platform has done it with some artists on very specific occasions.
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Cecilia considers the issue of fast fashion as serious as contamination by disposable plastic, not to mention that its washing generates microfibers that end up in the river, in the case of Guayaquil, no matter how much the water is treated.
“What it is about is to educate so that citizens do not buy fast fashion clothes that are garments that have a low cost, but are damaged quickly, so what fast fashion seeks is that you buy, buy and do not leave to buy. Precisely at this time they sell the idea that you must have new clothes to receive the year or for Christmas and in fact already in Guayaquil there are many second-hand stores where you can find clothes that for other people are already old or out of fashion. What you are doing there is a bit of circular fashion, there are even these designers who use recycled fabrics ”.
He adds that it is not about not buying clothes but about investigating where it comes from. It is not only the issue of waste but also social problems “generally when you see that a label says made in Bangladesh or Pakistan that means that this garment was made where there are people who earn very little money, in deplorable work situations, then that’s all, a bit looking for the circularity of clothing because sometimes we forget that fashion also generates waste. For example, when we buy jean we don’t realize how much water is used when it is made ”, he emphasizes.
To make jeans, approximately 7,500 liters of water are required, which is the amount of liquid that an average person drinks in seven years, according to the UN.
In addition to the existence of second-use stores, an advantage in Ecuador for not observing mountains of used or unsold clothing in the dumps, as is the case in other countries, is that its inhabitants maintain the culture of giving away clothes or inheriting them. garments worn by the older brother to the younger or between cousins and even friends. What do you do with the clothes that you no longer wear? here you have several options to monetize or reuse it without causing further pollution.
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
