By Maddie Slade '20
The Lexus Eco Challenge is a challenge for middle school through high school students to participate in to bring awareness to issues affecting our environment. Each team decides one issue that they want to help resolve and how they will raise awareness/help resolve the problem. Our team (Concetta Squitieri, Leslie Viveros, Evie Revel, Elsie Ames, and Maddie Slade) decided to focus on pollution that comes from the fashion industry. The fashion industry is one of the highest polluting industries in the world. To raise awareness about this problem, we decided to upcycle. We contacted local clothing companies about using their old fabrics in our upcycling. When we received the fabrics, we cut, tied and sewed the materials to make hair ties, scrunchies, headbands, etc. Then, we handed them out to people as they came in Door 6 in the morning. Along with this, we made a website (https://sites.google.com/visitationacademy.org/urbanupcyclers/home) and Instagram account (@urban.upcyclers). In doing this project, we hope to inspire people in our community to do some upcycling of their own and improve their shopping habits.