When Marina Weitz talks about her commitment to living sustainably, her actions speak just as loudly as her words.
Concerned about the tonnes of unwanted clothing ending up in landfill, and the flow-on environmental impact, in January she launched One Thread Road, a peer-to-peer platform for renting and lending apparel and accessories.
Weitz grew up in South Florida and studied interior design at the Pratt Institute in New York. After graduating she island-hopped, living the simple life while indulging her passion for surfing.
"I started out doing contract interior design work overseas but my love for photography gradually took precedence," she says.
"I continued to travel for nearly a decade, shooting for various surf camps and resorts around the world. Along the way I met my partner Sam in Panama, and after several years of travelling together, we decided to settle in his home town of Newcastle in 2017.
"I've always felt a deep connection to nature and, since relocating here, I've embarked on a journey to lead a more sustainable life within our society."
The couple decided to simplify their lives by designing and building a tiny home in Sam's father's backyard. They moved in a year ago with their baby daughter.
"During this transition and downsizing, I contemplated the life cycle of everything I owned, particularly my clothing," Weitz says.
"What struck me most was that I had been so concerned with plastic pollution and reusable items like grocery bags, water bottles, coffee cups and straws, but I hadn't considered clothing in the same light."
While researching the "end-of-life process for clothing" she discovered, to her horror, that only about 10 per cent of clothing in opportunity shops, or op shops, is resold. The rest goes straight to landfill.
Anyone who has visited an op shop recently knows that they are inundated with clothing, so much so that they often refuse donations. It's a problem that's only going to get worse as cheap, low quality clothing continues to flood the market.
This is clothing you are less likely to hang on to, and is most likely to dominate the clothing racks at op shops.
"The rise of "fast fashion" in the 1990s and 2000s, characterised by the rapid production of clothing to keep up with fleeting trends, floods racks with cheap, poor-quality clothes," Weitz explains.
"Ninety per cent of these donations end up in landfills without ever finding a new owner. Donating to op shops, while viewed as honourable and generous, can sometimes serve as a weak justification to perpetuate excessive clothing consumption."
Weitz says the fashion industry ranks second in global pollution after oil. Not only that, but Australians are "contributing significantly" to the 92 million tonnes of textile waste that ends up in landfill each year.
"The good news is that there are plenty of options already in existence to tackle this problem of waste, fast fashion, and the affordability of quality clothes," she says.
"Try buying secondhand before you shop new, or consider sharing your wardrobe through lending and renting to offer options for one-off occasions. You can help reduce the demand for the production of new clothing while connecting with a community of sustainably-minded, style-conscious people."
Here's where One Thread Road, which she describes as a "community wardrobe", fits in. Weitz says it, and platforms like it, fill gaps in our current shopping options and create a "holistic solution" to dress sustainably.
"The concept serves two purposes. Firstly, we can circulate the clothing we already own (and don't want to sell), reducing our environmental footprint," she explains.
"Secondly, we can have access to higher quality clothing that's better for the environment through either renting or subsidising the purchase costs through lending.
"I believe many of us have clothing sitting in our wardrobes that we rarely wear. Given the resources required to produce clothing and the waste generated in the process, it's imperative to maximise the use of each item and avoid letting them sit unused until they become outdated and discarded.
"Creating a community wardrobe offers perpetual accessibility and enables us to enjoy fashion and have fun with our style, without harming the environment."
Anyone can be a One Thread Road "lender". They just need to have quality pieces in their wardrobe that they're willing to share.
"Our existing users range in age from 20 to 60, and offer various styles and outfits suitable for different occasions," Weitz says.
"My hope is that anyone in our community can utilise the platform when they need to find something beyond their everyday wear, whether it's business attire for interviews, formal wear for events, special items for photo shoots, or even just a nice lunch or dinner out.
"To make it a viable alternative to shopping, we need as many people as possible to participate.
"The more options available on the site, the more valuable it becomes to us."
