The Student News Site of Souderton Area High School

The Arrowhead

The Arrowhead

The Student News Site of Souderton Area High School

The Arrowhead

The Student News Site of Souderton Area High School

The Arrowhead

The Arrowhead

Ethical Consumption Club explores ethical shopping

Co-presidents Julia Vizza and Mikayla Baker started the Students for Ethical Consumption Club to spread awareness on the relevance of ethical shopping.
%2A%2AFashion+show...%2A%2A%2ACo-President+Mikala+Baker+models+her+ethically+consumed+clothes.+Baker+helped+start+the+Students+for+Ethical+Consumption+club+recently.+%28Photo+republished+with+permission+from+Paige+Wilkinson%29%2A
**Fashion show…***Co-President Mikala Baker models her ethically consumed clothes. Baker helped start the Students for Ethical Consumption club recently. (Photo republished with permission from Paige Wilkinson)*

In order to spread awareness about fast fashion and unethical companies, co-presidents Julia Vizza and Mikayla Baker started the Ethical Consumption Club.
The Students for Ethical Consumption Club (S4EC) will mainly be operated through an Instagram page and a Schoology page.
The S4EC posts content about how to join and promotes the club on their Instagram. The Instagram account for the club is @s4ecsouderton; students can direct message the account to join the club.
The movement for ethical consumption is a way for communities and groups of people to pressure businesses into making their conditions better for workers, consumers and the environment.
“Ethical consumption is about being mindful of where you’re spending your money and the impact that it has on your community and your world,” co-president Julia Vizza said. “Ethical consumption can be done through thrifting, using second hand clothes more, as well as making sure the brands that you support are being ethical.”
Buying handmade clothes is one way to ethically consume goods.
“Also doing things like buying from small businesses that make handmade clothes is really good for sustainability,” Vizza said.
There are multiple ways for businesses to be more sustainable or ethical.
Business can be more ethical by using more sustainable supplies, reducing waste and preventing pollution.
People can ethically consume all kinds of brands and products such as cars, food and animal breeders.
One of the main things that people are extra cautious of when consuming is clothes because they are trying to stop fast fashion. Fast fashion is when a company copies expensive or designer brand trends while using low quality materials and imports the product from sweatshops. These lower-quality items are sold for close to the same price.
To practice ethical consumption, Vizza wants to have thrifting trips on the weekends with the club.
According to club member Nate Eraydin, ethical consumption is “really important.”
The club is trying to get as many members as possible.
“It’s a good club to get involved in,” club advisor Claire McAllister said.
Many students at Souderton may not think they can have an impact on major brands.
“I think that people don’t fully understand the impact they have [on companies,]” said Eraydin.
S4EC often uses a website or app called “Good on You,” which rates how ethical a brand is.
Club member Anjolie Ware won’t shop from SHIEN because it is a company that often uses very “low quality” materials and isn’t environmentally friendly.
One brand that has been boycotted is Nike because they used to use cheap labor in third world countries, mistreat the environment and not give workers rights. In 1991, Nike was exposed for using sweatshop labor that caused consumers to be outraged.
Since then Nike has said to have made working conditions better for workers and better pay for workers. Nike is rated at “It’s a start” by Good on You’s website.
The Good Trade’s website offers ethical brands to shop from as alternatives from larger unethical companies. Some ethical brands that the website lists are Pact, Summersalt, United by Blue, Nu-in and Happy Earth.
Happy Earth is a clothing brand for kids and adults. The company tries to be helpful as possible with the environment. According to Happy Earth’s website, they have donated money to multiple earth preservation projects.
Some of the projects include planting 379,123 trees, cleaning up 5,724 pounds of trash from the ocean and amerting 3,559,959 pounds of Greenhouse gasses.
Greenhouse gases are gases besides oxygen in our atmosphere. Greenhouses gases trap heat in the atmosphere and cause the greenhouse effect which heats up the Earth and contributes to global warming. Happy Earth has tried to decrease greenhouse gasses.
The club has a Schoology group and plans to do a thrifting trip in the future.
To join the club, one can direct message the Instagram page or join the Schoology group with the join code NVBV-5WKT-BWD2H.

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