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"Our whole retail model over the last 50 years has focused on keeping the industrial machine churning out items," said Ruben, who until 2007 had an up-close view as the head of sustainability at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the king of mass-produced goods. "But if my friend already has shinguards that he's not using, I don't need to buy them for myself."
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...Instead of trying to shrink a product's environmental footprint from the production side by making it with less material, advocates — especially clothing and shoe companies — are trying to extend its usefulness on the consumer end.

Retailers such as Hello Rewind are selling goods and products reworked from discarded scraps. Textile makers are experimenting with longer-lasting fabrics. Some businesses are asking shoppers to scale back their buying.

"It fits perfectly with the new movement toward sustainability in the fashion industry," said British designer Orsola de Castro, whose From Somewhere brand is considered an eco-apparel pioneer. "Hyper production and the sheer availability of cheap clothing has made us forget the value of maintaining and repurposing clothes and textiles."

Image: Pixabay, Creative Commons CC0

"I feel we have become so desensitized to our surroundings," Kirschner said. "People walk over broken glass or a coffee cup or a potato chip bag and just keep going. I've reached a point where I'm no longer OK with that."
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On average, 100 photos are posted every day. "If 1 million people - which is a failure by social media standards - picked up one piece of trash per day, we could have a huge impact," he said.
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To Kathleen Russell, leader of Keep Dimond Clean, an Oakland neighborhood group that picks up 12,000 pounds of litter every year, Litterati is a step in the right direction: "The key that we were missing was the young people, and Litterati does that with social media."
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Because the Digital Landfill creates a record of how much litter a user has disposed of, Kirschner imagines that Litterati could be a tangible way for participants to track the impact they've had. It has already changed his family's purchasing habits. The Kirschners buy in bulk, avoid single-use packaging and are planning to bring reusable containers to restaurants for take-out.
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"If I were to turn (Litterati) off, 12,000 pieces of litter aren't on the ground, and I know two little kids who will never litter as long as they live," Kirschner said. "If that's the legacy of Litterati, then I'm OK with it. But I think there's an opportunity for it to be much more than that."