TMU works to combat overconsumption and reshape students’ buying habits, one initiative at a time.
A short line begins to form outside Room 403 on the fourth floor of the Victoria Building. It is 9:50 a.m., with 10 minutes to go before doors open for the final Free Store event of the school year. Inside, two volunteers and an intern prepare for the day, reviewing check-out procedures and arranging the front table where items will be weighed and recorded.
Music plays softly in the background as students and faculty members make their way around the space, browsing the assortment of scattered items.
At the back of the room, a large blue Bristol board with yellow letters reads FREE STORE. Silver tinsel lines the top, adding a festive touch. Cut-out images of clothes, plants, a tea kettle, a picture frame, a reddish-orange lamp and the earth surround the words, hinting at the variety of items up for grabs.
The Free Store is an initiative created by Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) Sustainability Office to divert waste away from landfills and instead promote a circular economy among students.
Since its first launch during orientation of 2022, the Free Store has become a monthly event where students can cut costs while addressing the growing issue of overconsumption.
Overconsumption is the excessive use of goods and services such as energy, land, water, or minerals that cause harm to humans and the environment.
One of the biggest contributors to overconsumption is the fashion industry, where mass production has led to environmental and social consequences. According to the David Suzuki Foundation, global clothing consumption has reached 80 billion new pieces each year. This has created excessive water use, carbon emissions, and microplastic pollution. Aside from its environmental impacts, the industry has also been exposed for having unsafe working conditions, with exploited adults and children bearing the cost of the increased demand for the production of new styles and trends.
However, the problem does not end with production; the way people consume fashion is just as important.
Osmud Rahman is a fashion professor at TMU who researches consumer behaviour and fashion culture, as well as how they relate to environmental and societal consequences. Rahman explains that although overconsumption is evident, determining who is responsible is not so simple.
“By the big picture, we know we produce quite a lot and people consume a lot, and we can see a lot of wastage that ends up in landfills,” says Rahman. “We can tell definitely it’s overconsumption, but sometimes it’s difficult to tell which demographic group or people consume more.”
While the fashion industry fuels overconsumption through mass production, consumer behaviour plays a significant role in shaping the dynamics of the industry. Fast fashion, in particular, has grown rapidly in recent years, with consumers all over the world purchasing more than before, changing how people interact with fashion.
Rahman says that consumer behaviour in fashion is very complex, as it is shaped by a mix of values, needs and cultural influences. People do not always act in ways that align with their beliefs, specifically when it comes to sustainability. He describes this disconnect between values and behaviour as the “attitude-action gap.”
“Sometimes you have certain attitudes, or maybe you want to support the environment, but then in fact your behaviour, the action, is not the same; it doesn’t align with that,” says Rahman.
Buying decisions, Rahman says, are rarely straightforward with consumers having to weigh multiple factors such as price, quality, company values, personal values, and more. Rahman explains that while many consumers are aware of the negative effects of fast fashion, affordability becomes more of a priority.
“When you go to H&M and Zara, you see young people buying, but it doesn’t mean they are not conscious about it. Everyone lives with a very tight budget, especially now with inflation,” says Rahman.
A growing area of focus in combatting the effects of overconsumption is sustainability. Rahman says that although there is no universal definition of sustainability, it can be understood through the “triple bottom line” theory. This framework considers the environmental impact, social responsibility and financial viability of production practices.
Sustainability can also refer to practices that encourage better consumption habits among consumers, such as collaborative consumption and a circular economy.
Collaborative consumption is an economic model where goods and services are shared, swapped or rented, allowing multiple people to access them instead of one individual.
A circular economy, on the other hand, approaches production and consumption with the goal of expanding the lifespan of an item. For example, instead of throwing things away, they can be reused, repaired or recycled, eliminating waste and pollution.
TMU is already putting both of these models into practice through a number of campus initiatives. For example, the Free Store, which aims to reduce waste and encourage students to consume more mindfully, and the Repair Workshop, which teaches students how to repair common everyday items.
Sharmilla Raj is the sustainability manager at TMU’s Sustainability Office and she helps the university attain long-term goals to achieve a more sustainable campus.
“TMU has three long-term goals in its sustainability action plan: number one being a zero-waste campus by 2035; two, to become a net zero campus by 2045; and three, lastly, to become a Platinum Stars institution by 2035,” says Raj.
To achieve a Platinum Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) rating, an institution must not only meet the highest standards in various sustainability areas, but also demonstrate a commitment to continuous improvement in areas such as climate change and social equity.
A platinum STARS rating is a Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System that means that the institution has a high level of sustainability pe
Raj says that initiatives like the Free Store provide a practical demonstration of these goals in action, with over 4,000 items donated and over 8,000 rehomed in 2024 alone.
“We really did create the free store so that we would be able to divert waste away from the landfill, creating that sort of circular economy here at TMU and that zero-waste culture,” she says. “It also really provides equitable access for students to get the things that they need; household items, clothing, school supplies.”
Sierra Hendrickson is one of many students who attended the last Free Store event of the year on March 27.
When she arrived just a few minutes after the doors opened, the room was already crowded with students and faculty members browsing the selection of items. What began as a neatly folded stack of clothing quickly became a disorganized pile of pants and shirts.
Hendrickson made her first stop at this section of the room and reached for a pair of ripped medium blue-washed jeans with heavy distressing running down the front legs. She held the item up to her waist, tilting her head down.
As she looked up, her gaze fell on a mannequin wearing a bright fuchsia pink dress. The colour stood out from the rest of the room, making it impossible to ignore. With the help of her friend, Madelyn Scime, she carefully removed the dress and added it to the collection of items she took home for free that day.
For Hendrickson, the event offers more than just free items; she says it encourages her to think more critically about what it means to consume.
“It reminds me of the difference between a want and a need,” she says. “I think consumption is something that a lot of people don’t realize how much they’re doing of, so the store reminds me not to get wrapped up in consumption and material things.”
According to Raj, students are not just attending the events, some are choosing to take on a more active role in supporting sustainability efforts.
One volunteer, Ndeye Sira Sall, a first-year international student from Senegal, says her passion for mindful consumption stems from her personal upbringing and values.
Growing up, access to water was limited for Sall. She recalls having to wake up early to fetch water because it would have trouble flowing during the day.
“Limited does not necessarily mean not enough or scarce, but it was limited,” she says. “Hence, if you take a bath, you won’t use 20 litres or 50 litres. You’d use a couple of litres, which would be enough,” she explains.
During TMU’s orientation week of fall 2024, Victoria Street was bustling. Booths and tables lined the street as students, both old and new, explored the many clubs and initiatives available on campus. As Sall made her way along the street, a booth near the Nelson Mandela Walk caught her eye. She approached the booth and struck up a conversation with a friendly staff member from TMU’s Sustainability Office. There, she learned about the office’s mission, events they host and how she could get involved as a volunteer.
“I just spontaneously signed up for it without knowing what would be happening,” she says. “The thing is…when you do extracurriculars you are passionate about, it’s not a burden. It’s more of a way to take a break from studying and go to another world.”
Beyond the Free Store, TMU offers other programs that support sustainability and help students reduce their consumption.
One of these initiatives is the Repair Workshop which is a collaboration with the TMU Library Digital Media Experience Lab where students can bring broken items, and skilled fixers are able to provide guidance on how to restore or upcycle the item.
“What I really love about that initiative is we’re not just fixing the item and giving it back. We’re actually teaching and educating and providing resources and skills for TMU members to be able to understand how to do that themselves,” says Raj.
According to Rahman, initiatives that encourage collaborative consumption and reuse are the most effective way to reduce overconsumption and extend the life of items.
“I think this is perfect,” he says. “If we share things with others we can reuse products to prolong the life span, this is the most beneficial way to make our society, our environment, more sustainable,” he added.
While sustainability remains a central focus in addressing the effects of overconsumption, there are still other frameworks that can bring about change.
Dirk De Waal, a TMU fashion professor, studies degrowth and defashion.
Degrowth is an economic theory that fashion brands can implement to prioritize social welfare over economic growth. Brands can accomplish this by shifting from fast fashion to slow fashion and redesigning their business models to be more circular, providing more recyclable services such as repair, resale, and rental.
Defashion on the other hand, is a newer concept. According to Waal, defashion is about challenging the norms of fast fashion and commercialized fashion culture by celebrating craft practices and locally made products.
“Degrowth and defashion really speak about subverting that idea of trends and rather focusing on meeting need satisfaction more holistically and building community, that’s sort of quite a big part of the defashion community,” says Waal.
As a professor, Waal encourages students to rethink what it means to design in the context of degrowth and defashion in order to embed sustainability practices into education.
“I think it is our duty as educators to firstly encourage students to be critical, to think for themselves and to question everything,” he says. “Not just consume mindlessly but be mindful of not just product, but news, content, anything. We need to think about it. What goes into it? What is the impact that it has?”
For Raj, embedding sustainability into TMU’s learning and campus life is pivotal in educating students about mindful consumption and reducing waste.
“We have a responsibility to integrate that into our learning research and the various campus initiatives that we that we offer,” she says. “We really aspire to develop pathways for students to be able to access sustainability, learning and research opportunities that will really prepare them to identify, articulate and take action on sustainability challenges facing our world today.”
Students can get more involved in campus sustainability initiatives by filling out an application to become Sustainability Ambassadors. This program enables students to take on leadership roles by participating in initiatives and campaigns that promote sustainability.
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