Did you know that in most stores every piece of clothing comes shipped to the store in a plastic bag? Each bag gets removed by staff and goes into the garbage, all before the item hits the sales floor. These bags are not usually recyclable. Even if they are, which is rare, it requires staff to notice, care and be given time to sort what’s recyclable from what isn't- this doesn't usually happen.

Imagine every individual item from an H&M or Forever 21 arriving to the store in a clear plastic bag. Then imagine how many pieces of clothing fit into one store. The quantity of product moving in and out of a big name store is staggering. The back stock room of a shoe store I worked at could hold 10,000 pairs of shoes, and that’s not including apparel. On one holiday weekend, I had over 150 boxes of stock delivered. It’s like the Lorax, with things continuously being pumped into malls with the goal of selling more and more.

So not only does every new item come wrapped in plastic, but much of the apparel itself is also plastic, synthetic fibers like nylon, polyester, acrylic, or poly blends. One problem with this is that when we wash our clothes, tiny fibers come off our clothing and because they’re so small (like microscopic dryer lint) they enter our water system. These are microfibers, and they have recently been found in tap water and beer. So, we're starting to drink plastic. All the plastic that's ever been made, still exists, it's just breaking into smaller pieces, staying in our environment and beginning to enter our bodies as microplastics and microfibers.

Stores are not bubbles, stuff doesn’t magically show up on the shelf, or disappear when you donate or “throw it out.” Buying a new item is participating in the entire trail of ethics that exists on either side of the item sitting in store. Saying yes to the item, includes the before and after, microfibers and plastic garbage. Looking at objects in this way, that the object is a placeholder for the trail, can be a way to align your immediate actions with your environmental or social values. And when you consider a new purchase, what are you really buying.