To the rhythm of upbeat music, models in flashy shoes strut on stage, draped in gauzy fabrics sprinkled with tiny feathers and crystals. That's the beginning of a display of jackets, pants, mini-skirts, scarves, underwear, hairdos, and makeup all enfolded in lights that make everything look magical. The catwalk is where fashion begins, but a landfill is where it ends, in a process that's happening faster now than ever.

Fast fashion, cheap mass-produced items chasing rapid changes in fashion trends, is leading to over-buying and quick discarding of clothes. It's filling landfills with tons of garments while generating large amounts of greenhouse emissions in a rapidly-warming world.

Fortunately, there are people trying to do something about it. Recycling or upcycling unwanted textiles can create a second life for fast fashion items as a new garment or even carpet padding, but for some, the ultimate solution is to stop overproducing clothes.

In 2022, the State of Massachusetts made it illegal to discard textile materials into the trash. The ban was designed to encourage recycling and, according to the bill, "save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen our reliance on landfills and incinerators."

"We really saw an uptick in collections after the waste ban was put on in Massachusetts for textiles," said Samantha Marino, account manager and recycling coordinator at Bay State Textiles, a recycler working exclusively with schools and municipalities since 2005. Bay State distributes recycling bins which are collected once a month. Clients receive $120 per ton of material collected.

After the material is transported to the warehouse, it is made into compressed bales that weigh about one thousand pounds and shipped out to a grading facility where everything is sorted. The Massachusetts warehouse handled about 9 million pounds of textiles last year.

"We accept the good, the bad and the ugly, said Marino. "It doesn't have to be wearable clothing that's in perfect condition. It can be a stained T-shirt or pants with holes in them or a single sock."

At the grading facility, the bags are opened and every item is put into one of three categories based on their condition. Those in the best condition are marked for reuse as clothing. Textiles that aren't in great condition are headed for fiber conversion into something like carpet padding or car seat stuffing. The final category of clothes in the worst condition, about 30% of the total, becomes wiping rags.

But recycling is not the only way to solve the problem of fast fashion. Some people have started upcycling, the process of making something new out of thrifted materials. They even end up selling their craft and making a profit out of it.

Maeve Stover, a recent graduate at UMass Amherst school of Public Health, remembers how she decided to teach herself to sew during the pandemic. With a little help from her mother, she was able to master the skill and soon began remaking clothes she had in her wardrobe, plus some that she found in thrift stores.

"I decided to challenge myself and I was really excited about the opportunity to sell something," said Stover. "So last fall, I started selling these sweatshirts that I would make on my college campus."

Stover would take 50 sweatshirts, T-shirts, and other clothing items, as well as old quilted pillowcases from a thrift store. She would cut the letters "UMass" out of the quilted material, and stitch them onto the sweatshirts to resemble the collegiate sweatshirts.

"That was a big hit and such a fun adventure on learning how to produce and sell and market these items." Stover said. "Those were very popular. But then I also sold some of my originally crafted and completely handmade clothing items, such as I think I sold a couple of dresses, some sweaters and some skirts that had nothing to do with my college, but were also materials that I made."

Her enterprise has given Stover strong feelings about fast fashion. "We're victims of this extreme age of marketing and buying and consumerism where we feel like we need to have this new item every year or something's wrong, we're missing out. We're being told over and over again to keep on spending."

Stover adds that inexpensive clothing is only made possible by cheap labor overseas, working in sometimes inhumane conditions. "There shouldn't be tops available for five dollars when it takes like three hours for me to make a [similar] clothing item.… We should be aghast at that price. Someone is taking the brunt of that low cost."

Stover argues that brands should invest in using high quality materials like linens and cottons and more natural fibers and "educating people that if you buy this one item for twice the price of another cheaper one, it's more money up front, but you can have that piece for years and years, even pass it down to your children. That's worth more in the long run."

In California, Taylor Nelander, owner and creator of Softpaw, an online store dedicated to the upcycle of vintage materials into new garments, has similar opinions. She also started sewing during the pandemic after the shutdown locked her out of her bartending job. With little to do at home, she started mending old clothing with a sewing machine that her grandmother gave her.

"I had a stack of old quilts and blankets, and it just made sense to mend the clothing that I already had," said Nelander. "I started putting quilt patches on the denim and then I just started becoming more creative with it."

She already had a small side business reselling vintage clothing and she took advantage of the platform she already had to start offering her new creations.

People started asking Nelander for custom pieces made with their own quilts and materials. "It kind of just snowballed from there," she explained "I collected old quilts and old vintage clothing, and I just morphed it all together and started my business that way."

In a recent trip to Colorado, Nelander went shopping for vintage thrifted material and she was aghast with the amount of fast fashion clothing she found in the thrift stores.

"I think it's a huge waste," said Nelander. "I don't think we need any more clothing on the planet."