31 JANUARY 2024
LUNAR NEW YEAR KEXIN CAI
The Lunar New Year is a significant annual event in many Asian countries. In China, people eagerly anticipate the Spring Festival, marking off the days on their calendars. They look forward to lanterns hanging from their houses, the fireworks lighting up the night sky, and the sound of firecrackers bidding farewell to the old year. Most importantly, they cherish the reunion with their families. Even though the Lunar New Year is one of the coldest times of the year, that does put a damper on people’s enthusiasm to welcome spring with the Festival. Early in the morning, the eaves of the house in front have been hung with orange or red rows of lanterns, a little yellow and mild light fluttering in the still-not-dissipated, hazy light. Then the elders get busy, cleaning the house and preparing for the evening meal. The children, with nothing else to do, would go out to the streets to see the special stalls set up for New Year’s Eve, which were often filled with a wide array of things like small Chinese knots, and beautifully embroidered animal dolls. My clearest memory of the entire New Year is actually the fireworks. When the ink-like color of the night came over the sky and the boundary between heaven and earth was no longer clear, it was time for the fireworks. As the fuse of the fireworks was slowly ignited, a beam of firelight ran up to the sky at great speed, and then exploded in the night sky, like various colors of paint splashed on the black curtain, or the stars in the night sky instantly falling. The colorful sparks scattered in all directions and were then swallowed up by the thick night. I vaguely
New Year New You
No Wardrobe Waste JAMES THORNBURG
We all aspire to a style that looks good and feels good but is simultaneously good enough to be featured on a Pinterest board or style inspiration Instagram. But style often comes at a cost. In America alone, an estimated 17 million tons of textile waste - equivalent to 66% of all textiles - end up in landfills every year and only about 15% are recycled while the rest are burned. Beyond the waste clothing generates after being produced, there is an off-product of creating the clothing to consider. The process of the color and chemicals imbued in fabrics is responsible for well over 20% of global water pollution. Shipping the textiles also creates waste with the textile industry generating 42 million tons of plastic waste per year making the textile industry the second-highest industrial sector after packaging. Maybe like many reading this you’re thinking to yourself, “I donate my items after to Goodwill.” While donating your clothes to a thrift store like Goodwill or Salvation may give some of your clothes a good life, the majority will end up in the landfills and incinerators. Maybe you’re even more responsible and take your gently used items to a take-back program. Retailers including H&M, GAP, Patagonia, Levi’s, Madewell, and others have announced in-store programs allowing customers to bring in worn garments. These are sorted to be donated or recycled—turned into insulation, rags, or, more misleadingly, recycled into textile for new garments—sometimes in exchange for a discount voucher. While this program is a great idea, recycling old items into new ones weakens the fibers and cloth made from mixed fibers making it tough to separate thin fibers from their native components. Even the companies who champion these programs admit it with H&M’s 2016 sustainability Continued to page 2