Tackling waste in the fashion industry
My name is Alexandria de Rosset, and I served as a Green Corps Campaigner during the spring of 2025. The past four months have flown by in a whirlwind of petition signatures, phone calls and volunteer meetings.
I decided to apply for Green Corps after graduating college with a journalism degree. I imagined I would work at a local paper, writing environment-focused stories. I spent my summers working in the outdoor industry, honing my interpersonal and leadership development skills while deepening my connection with our natural world.
After graduation, I realized I didn’t want to just write about environmental issues; I wanted to be directly involved in implementing solutions. But without a science background, I wasn’t sure where to start. Luckily I found Green Corps, a program that promised to train me to be a successful environmental organizer.
In our classroom trainings I was introduced to the theory of organizing and practiced skills like storytelling, giving class announcements and training leaders. I learned what it takes to do this work and build an organization that will last. I learned it takes patience, determination and the ability to learn from mistakes. I learned that sometimes all you can do is show up again tomorrow, and the day after that. I also learned that if I show up for enough tomorrows there will come a time when I can look back and say, “We did that.”
Alexandria and the Student PIRGs team at Georgia State University coordinated the Sustainable Fashion Show with more than 200 attendees as part of their ongoing effort to reduce waste in the textile industry.
In January, I launched the Waste is Out of Fashion campaign with the Student PIRGs to hold fashion companies responsible for the textile waste they create. We want companies, including H&M, to commit to not burn or trash their unsold clothing.
The semester got off to an exciting start. At our kickoff meeting, 91 volunteers attended. Next, we worked with more than 70 volunteers to plan campaign events including clothing swaps and tie-dye upcycling events to educate people on this issue while also signing petitions, posting on social media and calling on H&M to make this commitment.
My highlight was the Sustainable Fashion Show at Georgia State University. We hosted 25 models, nine designers and over 200 guests. Everyone in attendance saw how fashion could look if companies broke free from wasteful practices and instead focused on sustainable production methods.
In the future, I want to take the skills I learned this spring and generate grassroots involvement into future organizing work. While I’m excited to continue to learn more about how to do this work well, I will continue to work for this planet and the issues we care about.