Northampton school's eco-council aims to combat fast-fashion

Northampton School for Girls' eco-council leader, Ava, said fast-fashion was a major contributor to climate change

A school event aimed at encouraging students to re-use clothes will help develop "future changemakers".

Northampton School for Girls held a Back On The Rack event to raise awareness of fast-fashion culture.

The school's eco-council leader, Ava, said producing and throwing away clothes was "one the biggest contributors to climate change".

Head teacher Cristina Taboada-Naya said the project was "incredibly important" to pupils.

The event saw youngsters at the state secondary school donate their old clothes, which could then be bought by their peers.

The Back On The Rack event saw students donate clothes they did not want any more for re-sale

Money raised at the event would be reinvested into eco-initiatives, both within the school and the surrounding community.

Ava told BBC Look East: "Fast-fashion is the production of trendy clothes made at cheap prices to meet the customers' demands.

"A lot of the time they are made to hop on a trend and they go out of fashion really quickly.

"That means there is so much waste. It uses up a lot of natural resources."

Head teacher at Northampton School for Girls, Cristina Taboada-Naya, said students were passionate about climate issues

Eco-council member, Aleena, has already started sharing clothes with her sister in an attempt to combat fast-fashion

She said the idea behind the event was to "combat fast-fashion and make our school community greener".

Eco-council member, Aleena, said the project had inspired her to share clothes with her sister and pass on old clothes to other family members.

"I don't like buying so many clothes and never using them again," she said.

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Ms Taboada-Naya said the schoolgirls had been "really inspired by COP26", but she added that "the reality is we've got our future world leaders within our schools right now and I like to think, and I believe, we've got future changemakers in our schools".

The school planned to run more Back On The Rack events in the future.