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Activist wears a month’s worth of trash as a suit

Environmental activist Rob Greenfield wore a month’s worth of his own rubbish to demonstrate how much we generate on a regular basis. It also makes for quite the fashion statement.  

Next time you’re taking your bins out, perhaps consider donning those discarded bags of cardboard and food waste as a fresh new outfit.

It may sound like an insane suggestion, but that’s exactly what environmental activist Rob Greenfield did last month, as he was spotted perusing the streets of Los Angeles in a suit made entirely of his own rubbish.

The stunt was undertaken to deliberately spark conversation and visually demonstrate just how much trash we actually generate, particularly on an individual basis. With single-use plastics, cardboards, and Styrofoam still the standard packaging options for most of our foods and goods, nearly all of us throw away heaps of excess materials every week.

 

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A post shared by Rob Greenfield (@robjgreenfield)

Over in the US, for example, the average citizen creates over 2kg of rubbish on a daily basis. Once it’s thrown into a bin we seldom think about where it actually goes and how it’s processed. Rob wants to change that mentality.

‘I came to Hollywood to bring my message of regenerating our Earth to those that need to hear it most’, he said. He adds that public responses were mixed. ‘Some felt shame and ignored me, but thousands embraced my message and saw it as a wake-up call’.

‘I was met with curiosity and intrigue nearly everywhere I went.’

 

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A post shared by Rob Greenfield (@robjgreenfield)

Rob has promised that he will be wearing the trash suit for an entire month. He made the transparent overlay material suit himself and washed all of the garbage thoroughly beforehand so that it doesn’t smell, thankfully.

We’ve written before about just how difficult recycling and waste disposal can be. Even if we think we’re doing the right thing by throwing our unwanted cardboards into recycling bags, quite often they still end up in landfill.

 

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A post shared by Rob Greenfield (@robjgreenfield)

Plus, many of us don’t check to see if our waste is actually recyclable, leading to the growing problem of ‘wishcycling’.

Rob’s activism protest may be superficially comical, but the message behind it is serious and pressing. We cannot continue to live on a single-use system and more must be done to change both consumer habits and company policies.

Always check the packaging before you recycle, and re-use wherever you can. Otherwise we may all end up forced to wear our rubbish as suits in the not-so-distant dystopian future.

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