A dismayed Redditor posted photos of one pair of decent, decades-old boots and one pair of busted, one-year-old boots to show the difference in quality.
The boots that are in better shape were made in the 1990s and purchased at a thrift store, whereas the $170 boots that had fallen apart were new, and "supposed to be a 'nice' brand," according to the OP.
"I'm convinced there are no good quality products being made anymore, not like they used to make," they wrote.
The boots were only three months old, yet the soles were peeling and the boots had huge tears in them. They looked unsalvageable.
The planned obsolescence of fast fashion and even of name-brand products is a growing force of destruction to our planet.
Project Cece explains that "planned obsolescence" — when it comes to consumer products — "consists of designing, manufacturing, and marketing items so that they're discarded after a short period of time."
According to Project Cece, people wear new items of clothing an average of only seven times.
Because many of these items are so poorly made, like the boots in this Reddit post, they're often quickly thrown out.
Pebble Mag reported that this careless industry caused 18.6 million tons of clothing waste in 2020, and it's likely to keep rising unless people start saying no to fast fashion.
And this waste doesn't end up only in landfills, but in nature, too — washing up on shorelines and flooding into rivers around the world.
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Which of these factors would most effectively motivate you to recycle old clothes and electronics?
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Giving me money back 💰 One great way to avoid falling into the fast fashion trap is to buy more clothes and accessories from thrift stores, where more durable pieces can be snagged at low costs, saving shoppers money while avoiding fast fashion.
Commenters on Reddit empathized with the poster.
One mentioned a documentary about the difference in how products were made in the 1970s and 80s as compared to today, and how much lower the quality is now.
"Basic reason was for profit and the ability to do quick fashion turnovers… it's depressing," the commenter explained.
Another wrote, "When the whole economic system revolves around squeezing as much profit as possible out of anything you possibly can, then built-in obsolescence/shoddiness to promote consumerism is inevitable."
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