Swish – Make Second Hand your First Choice!

Over the course of the Autumn term the RGS Earthshot team have been planning the first event in the RGS Earthshot series which took place on the 18th of November.

A whole school “Swish”.

The principle of the event is to tackle the problem of fast fashion, where “cheap, trendy clothing that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity culture” are produced at high speeds to meet huge consumer demand. However, in the process of this, non-renewable sources of energy are depleted, greenhouse gases are emitted, and vast amounts of water and energy are wasted.

Therefore, the team decided that to stop the harmful effects of “retail therapy” we would organise a whole school clothes swap, where students could collect tokens for items of clothing donated, which could be used to collect someone else’s unwanted clothes. Whilst also making it an event that would be fun for all years to attend.

So on Thursday this week the event took place, where over 600 items were swapped and over 100 students got involved, all in the presence of a student led band which performed songs such as The Beatles, with leftover clothes going to either a Ukrainian support charity, or local charity shops. Hence whilst the songs were performed and the snacks were eaten – the RGS Earthshot team managed to do our part in the community of trying to steer people away from a key environmental problem.