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Trashion Show!

April 10, 2023
By Kassidy Jack

SUNDAY ALAMBA/AP IMAGES

RAINBOW OF PLASTIC This model wears a dress made from single-use plastic bags. About 5 trillion plastic bags are produced worldwide annually.

READ ALL ABOUT IT! This “trashion” ensemble is made from newspapers. Paper accounts for about 26 percent of waste in landfills.

JUICY DRESS This outfit is made of juice pouches. These pouches are not recyclable, because the layers of metal and plastic can’t be separated.

DRINK DEBRIS This teen wears an outfit made from bottles. Around the world, 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute.

CHIP SWAG This colorful outfit is made of chip bags. According to the United Nations Environment Program, about 36 percent of plastic produced is used in packaging—85 percent of which ends up in landfills.

JIM MCMAHON/MAPMAN ®

At an annual fashion show in Lagos, Nigeria, models show off colorful fashions—made entirely of trash. The populous African city generates 13,227 tons of waste each day. To draw attention to the huge amount of garbage, a conservation group called Green Fingers Wildlife Initiative teamed up with local teens to host a yearly “Trashion Show.” This event showcases clothing made from local rubbish.

SUNDAY ALAMBA/AP IMAGES

COLORFUL CAPS

This dress is made from bottle caps—one of the most common types of ocean plastic pollution.

The group regularly organizes trash cleanups across communities to collect materials for runway outfits. “We estimate more than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of trash are used in each show, including plastic bottles, caps, and nylon bags,” says Chinedu Mogbo, the founder of Green Fingers.

A WORLD OF WASTE

People toss about 2.2 billion tons of trash each year worldwide. This bar graph shows the estimated amount of waste generated by different regions. About how many more tons of waste does North America produce than sub-Saharan Africa, which includes Nigeria?

SOURCE: WORLD BANK, 2016

Earth Science
Environment
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