Week One of Be Green Challenge
Sophia Lisaius

I recycle, I compost, and I do many other things that I feel help the planet so I thought very little of this "Be Green Challenge." Since it was focused towards fashion and where the clothing came from I was not too concerned since I am much more of a window shopper than an actual buyer.

This challenge already proved that I am not the person that I thought I was. Since I no longer play
sports, and my clothing schedule is not planned I can't help but want to buy everything. The only
thing kind of holding me back is this challenge. The real thing that holds me back is quality.

When looking for quality I can't help but think about the film "Made in L.A." that we watched in class. I haven't stepped into forever 21 since the school year started, and it makes me much happier
knowing that I am not supporting such horrible conditions. I know now that rather then buying things
that are cheap, and of poorer quality, that I should look for clothing that has either been handmade by
an appropriate source, or check out the second hand stores in town. Luckily I have yet to buy anything.

While window shopping this week, I checked out Etsy.com to see what clothing could actually be
priced at when someone gets paid their fair share. Some of the clothing seem a bit unreasonable, yet
upon further investigation it made total sense. Each garment was made with extreme care, the details were spot on, and I knew that the person making these things would receive the proper payment.

I wanted to see what other stores were as bad as forever 21, which was proven to be pretty
disappointing. From Treehugger.com,(funny name since this project was all about being green) they list all of the common ones, like walmart, and h&m, yet the ones that caught my attention were the ones that sold items at higher costs. They didn't have a reason for selling things at such high costs since they must have been making a fortune off of such cheap labor. The items in these stores seems to be of such high quality, yet rather then paying their workers, they kept the difference.

Over all this first week has already opened my eyes to a world of confusion and made me more aware that I need to do more research before I buy anything, rather than sitting back and helping these workers live a horrible life. I am excited to see what will progress, and how my shopping habits will change.