Senior Sage Waymire-Rozman has taken the pollution problems brought on by the fashion industry into her own hands. As her RED project, Waymire-Rozman has chosen to recycle used jeans and turn them into bags.

Inspired by the extreme pollution caused by the fashion industry, Waymire-Rozman sought to improve the way consumers and the fashion industry handle textile waste. “An average consumer throws away 70 pounds of clothing per year. Globally, we produce 13 million tons of textile waste each year; 95% of which could be reused or recycled. In addition to all this, the fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world,” Waymire-Rozman said in an email interview.

Waymire-Rozman has high aspirations for this project and hopes to continue it through college. She hopes to bring greater awareness and action to this pressing issue. “I am excited to see where this goes and how much I am able to sell. I want to create to bring awareness to this issue so that people can learn the importance of recycling their used clothing,” Waymire Rozman said in an email interview.

Although Waymire-Rozman’s commitment to the project has brought about much excitement and commitment, making these bags has been somewhat difficult considering her lack of sewing experience. “What has been difficult is making the bags. I have never really done much sewing before, so making bags that are good enough that people would want to buy them has been a challenge,” Waymire-Rozman said in an email interview.

The class she is doing this for is RED Capstone. The goal of the class is to encourage students to independently create something they are passionate about. “I love being able to explore my interests and learning to become comfortable with failing and making mistakes,” Waymire-Rozman said in an email interview.