During a time when most kids are worrying about their grades or their next outfit, high school junior Soor Sanghvi is worrying about sustainability. He noticed that many of his peers were supporting fast-fashion brands without insight into the environmental impact and decided to work on a solution for hyper-consumerism and textile waste.
"Right now, we are headed in a terrible direction with the new trend of fast fashion taking over," Sanghvi said to Community News. To take small steps toward encouraging sustainability in his community, he decided to take a two-pronged approach: community clothing exchanges and an app, Revogue.
Last fall, Sanghvi worked with local religious leaders and scout troops across the country to organize fall clothing swaps. He was able to organize swaps in New Jersey, Illinois, New York, California, Washington, and Florida.
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Set strict regulations 🚫 His event at West Windsor Community Park on Sept. 28, 2024, attracted a lot of community involvement and volunteers to support the cause and encourage a more sustainable option for back-to-school shopping.
Revogue is not only an app but also an LLC. Sanghvi hopes to address the fashion industry's destructive impact on the environment. On the Revogue app, you can create posts to offer items you no longer want to others in your area.
Events like Sanghvi's are becoming more necessary with each passing year. Secondhand markets — such as the one in Kantamanto, Ghana — are overflowing with fast fashion. There are 15 million clothing items delivered to Kantamanto every week. Most of the items are made of synthetic fabrics, so these items end up not getting properly recycled or are burned, which contributes to pollution.
While some fast-fashion companies are filing for bankruptcy, others are expected to achieve continued success by integrating sales with social media channels and are still managing to convince younger shoppers that following micro-trends is more important than our planet.
Sanghvi's goals for the future are to organize more swaps around the country, create an annual swap event, and continue his climate research with professors at Cambridge University. "Together, we can all put in effort to make ourselves more sustainable, and in turn, make the world more sustainable," Sanghvi said to Community News. "As long as each one of us makes an effort, no matter how small or big, we are bound to create a difference."
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