Social media influencer Janet Chemitei draws attention to textile waste and fashion industry pollution. She encourages young people to embrace slow fashion by repairing and reusing clothes.
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00:00The Dandora dump site on the outskirts of Nairobi covers 30 acres and is one of the
00:06largest in the world.
00:10Jannet Chemite often comes here to document the mountains of waste with her cell phone.
00:15Hi everyone, my name is Chemite Jannet, I'm a waste and slow fashion educator and today
00:22we're here in Dandora dump site to see the type of waste that ends up here and I'm especially
00:29interested in seeing the textile waste that ends up in the dump site.
00:34With such reels, the environmental activist wants to raise awareness of the problems caused
00:38by the fast fashion industry, quickly produced cheap clothes that are thrown away just as
00:43quickly, causing ever-growing mountains of waste in many countries.
00:50When people see my videos, most of them are usually very shocked, especially the ones
00:55in Kenya.
00:56When you think about Dandora, for example, people know that there's a dump site there
01:01but they don't know how it looks like.
01:04So when they see all these things that happen, they're so curious and most of them respond
01:09that they want to make changes in their lives.
01:12Jannet Chemite is trying to convince people to change their behaviour and live more sustainably,
01:18and huge numbers of people get her message via her social media accounts.
01:22Her most successful video to date has been seen more than 10 million times.
01:33For me, the most important thing is that the comments and the engagements that I got were
01:38of people just appreciating that they were learning something that they didn't really
01:44know about their clothes and the fashion industry, which is something that I always aim for when
01:50I'm sharing these videos because I want people to learn and to see the reality of the fashion
01:55industry on the ground.
01:57It's been calculated that the fashion industry produces up to 10 percent of the emissions
02:01that cause climate change.
02:03The massive oversupply in developed economies means huge amounts of textiles are dumped
02:08as second-hand goods in countries such as Kenya.
02:12It's an unsustainable situation that has scientists worried.
02:18If we have 185,000 tons coming in per year, then definitely we'll be having 185,000 tons
02:28to be thrown away, either next year or five years down the line, because these are only
02:32second-hand clothes.
02:33We also have new clothes coming in, so we have a minimum of 200,000 tons of textile
02:41waste that we have to deal with in Kenya per year.
02:45One solution Jeannette Chimite offers in her videos is to treat clothes with more respect.
02:50She regularly searches for interesting pieces at the Gikomba second-hand market and shows
02:56her followers how to make them look chic again with little effort.
03:12In addition to her digital activities, the 28-year-old also gives workshops and lectures,
03:38like here at the Fair Fashion Festival in Nairobi.
03:42At the event, local designers and artists showcase their collections made from recycled
03:46and sustainable materials.
03:50There's also a kind of swap shop where visitors can swap second-hand clothes.
03:57You don't have to buy new clothes to be stylish or to refresh your wardrobe.
04:04People have so many clothes already that they have bought and they're not wearing it.
04:07So you come to events like this where you bring a number of clothes and then you extend
04:12it with someone else, and that helps us embrace slow fashion in a way.
04:18Embracing slow fashion as a counter-concept to fast fashion not only ensures less waste,
04:23it also saves money.
04:24In Jeannette Chimite's experience, once people have learned about it and understand, they
04:29find it useful.
04:31That's why it's so important to keep promoting it, she says.
04:35When I see young people encouraging each other to attend more sustainable fashion events,
04:42going to clothing swaps, buying second-hand, making their own clothes, it makes me so happy
04:47because it means that the work that we're doing in this space is reaching more people
04:53and that the fashion industry is going to change for sure.
05:00And it can even be fun.
05:02Instead of buying a new piece of clothing, she crochets it herself.
05:07And while she's doing it, she's probably already working on an idea for her next reel.