Most shops are just landfill waiting to happen.

[SummerDaytoNight]

I mean, all are to a point, but I’m talking about the non essential ones.

Our society is engineering its own collapse. We only need food, health, house basics and clothing. And I suppose, technology.

Fast fashion could go. Housing should just be the essentials.

My friend took me into a shop called sostrene grene. It was lovely, but nothing was essential. Most shops are like that.

The horse has bolted, but I wish we could limit the unnecessarily stuff and just have the basics. Im not talking Amish level, but there’s no need for all this waste. It would be so much better if only the essentials were produced.

At the point of production, it’s already basically landfill.

That’s fine but you can’t go wrong with plain items. You don’t pay with Vinted until it’s delivered and with black t shirts, there’s little that can go wrong if you read the description and ask appropriate questions if necessary.

I don't want to buy clothing online, second hand or new. I need to feel the fabric first.
I handle my budget better with cash.

But yeah, 'let them eat cake'

That’s fine, but seeing as you’re happy for other people to earn a pittance and the environment to suffer to ‘meet your needs’, you can’t criticise others that do the same (aka the big corporations I’m guessing you hate!).

Not everyone has the spoons for all that.
I need a pair of leggings, I pop to Primark and get some. No waiting for talking to someone online, no waiting for delivery. No sending it back when it is no good.
Also, you need photo ID for Vinted and I don't have any. I am also not interested in using it.

I am clothed though....

Yes, your convenience must come first. That’s fine - just don’t bang the drum of ‘other people putting their needs before the environment and the poor’ when on a smaller scale you’re happy to do that yourself.

I buy my undies from Primark too (and from supermarkets). Am I allowed to do that? Or must I buy them second hand too?

Are only the poor not allowed to buy new and cheap from Primark? Is all of your clothing second hand?

I would say 80% of my clothes are second hand. The only things I routinely buy new are underwear and shoes. I don’t feel like I’m being made to eat cake, or walking around in other people’s ’cast offs’. I find that statement snobbish and offensive.

@Peony1897 I find that different retailers (and even within the same shop) that sizes vary massively.
Buying via vinted is still going by trust from the seller and hope that it will fit.

Yes, but if PP is adamant that Primark is a great match for her, then she can buy Primark via Vinted and feel confident it will fit. Bundles are great because even if you get unlucky with the odd item, you won’t pay postage for nothing.

Maybe I used the wrong choice of words, but you are the one here saying that low income people should not expect to buy new. That is snobbish and offensive.

I don't want a bundle. I also don't want to use yet another shopping app. I budget better with cash.

Why is it offensive? If you have less money, you make budgeting choices. What is remotely controversial about that?

And I do just that. I get my new clothing from Primark. It fits all my needs, including budget.
You are the one telling me that I should not do that, and should buy second hand or use Vinted.

Yes because Primark is unethical and their workers are paid pennies to make your polyester clothing, which then sheds microplastics into the water system when you wash them and never degrade even after you throw them away.

This isn’t about social class, it’s about the kind of society and world we want to live in and pass on to our children.

You seem to think a magic system is out there somewhere where we can abuse the planet without ramifications, and have whatever we like as cheaply as we want without that backfiring onto somebody else (usually in a much poorer country). All in the name of ‘dignity’ for you.

I work and earn a relatively low/average wage, but I don’t see new clothes made in a sweat shop as something I am entitled to to prove I’m an equal human being.

This thread is about stuff that is destined to landfill. I wear my clothing until it falls apart. When holes appear in my primark leggings, I sew them up.

I buy according to my budget and Primark is my budget. I am not trying to prove I am an equal human being anywhere. I just want my body covered up in a way that is comfortable for me and my budget.

The cost of living means a lot of people can't shop ethically. I remember a thread on here where I was flamed by middle class Waitrose and farm shop regulars about me buying cheap chicken from Tesco. "Oh, why can't you just not have chicken so often, and buy a £20 one from a farm shop?".

If you are low income, you can't win. You buy cheap, you are accused of destroying the planet. I don't have kids and I don't travel. I like to think my impact on this earth is low enough without me having to worry about clothing too. Clothing that I wear until it falls apart. Like many others, I am just trying to get by as best as I can with what I have.

For context you can wear it for 20 years but a polyester t shirt will take up to 200 years to decompose. So the fact you wear things until they fall apart is neither here nor there really. And when it does decompose the plastic fibres pollute the ground and water supply.

If instead you bought a second hand cotton t shirt from GAP, not only would it last a lot longer and be better value for money, it would not decompose in this way.

My other point is that you’re very very vocally anti-profits, anti big business, and anti what you see as the ‘oppressive machine’. Well, now is a great time not to line the pockets of any big company like Primark who exploit workers in a way I’m sure you very much disapprove of. How exciting that at our fingertips we have the means never to have to buy from them again!

You do realise that practically anything mass produced whether "cheap" or "high end" might be considered unethical at some level of production? In fact, as I recall some luxury brands are produced cheek by jowl with cheap brands. The factories just stitch in different labels. It's no good singling out Primark or any other particular brand.

For every solution, there is a problem. If we as consumers boycott the factories that supply outlets such as Primark, and those factories shut down, the employees might end up with nothing, rather than something.

Certainly lobby for better labour conditions for such workers, and for better environmental practices, but the market will just adapt and find other ways to maximise profit over all other considerations. Most such production is done in other countries and out of our purview or direct influence.

So haranguing one person about their shopping habits is indeed just a drop in a vast, money hungry ocean.

Online shopping, whether new or secondhand, increases traffic and pollution via delivery methods, and the environmental impact of yet more and more digital tools is also huge.

The system us at fault, and either way we're locked in, no matter how much you like to think your individual choices, and frankly smug attitude, is going to save the world.

Yes which is why I buy second hand. I don’t want to line the pockets of huge businesses. There are enough clothes in circulation that none of use should need to buy anything new apart from underwear and shoes for at least a decade, yet we will, filling the planet with plastic fibres anyway.

I’m really not surprised that as usual you’ve taken the tack of blaming the ‘big corporations’ rather than individuals. But whose money props them up?

We are all responsible for the planet around us. Being one selfish person isn’t a big deal. But 30 million selfish people is.

Primark do cotton items too. Just for you, I took off my T-shirt, and it says it is 95% cotton. They also sell a lot of stuff that is made from recycled materials.

Before I was on UC, I was wearing All Saints, Karen Millen etc. A lot of them are also made in "poorer" places.

I am not anti-profits, anti-big business or whatever, at all. But then you have been hounding me on another thread about my living conditions from months ago.
Respectfully, please leave me the fuck alone now. It is getting creepy.

You responded to me first.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/mar/07/private-investors-ability-to-sue-governments-is-a-form-of-legal-terrorism-ending-this-system-is-imperative-aoe#:~:text=Investor%2Dstate%20dispute%20settlement%20(ISDS,of%20health%20and%20environmental%20policies.

I think it's fair to give big corporations side eye when they have our governments by the short and curlies on every front, behind closed doors.

Agree, so let’s not give them our cash.

So if you're t shirt is 95% cotton why do you need to feel the fabric in contrast to every other cotton shirt you can buy second hand? Or if you buy only black and grey anyhow why not buy from literally the hundreds of charity stores that offer those items in all favrics and sizes? You can literally not find a simple black shirt in any charity shop or on vinted?
I now what it means to be poor being on benefits myself but that is why I am making choices which are frugal and as a byproduct also ethical.
Buying second hand = better quality for a lower price
Eating less meat= cheaper and therefore I can afford better quality when I need it
Bringing my own shopping bags= no bag charge
I could go on and on about those things. At the end of the day you make those choices not because you're poor but because they're the easiest.

I can't feel a second t-shirt on Vinted. And I do not want to shop online. It does not help me budget.
And do you even go in charity shops much? Plain clothing is far and few between. I don' do prints or patterns. But I guess I can't be choosy cos I am on UC, eh? I also do not have the energy to be looking in charity shops all the time.
Primark is cheap and new. No intimate sweat from previous owners. I keep the clothing until it dies.

I take my own shopping bags everywhere, thank you.