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Often on urban lots, behind chain link fences, adorned with hand-painted signs, plots burgeoning with fruits, vegetables, and flowers, flanked by compost piles — the humble community garden feels like a salve for so much that ails us.

On this Community Voices episode, we're going from Los Angeles to Brazil to hear how community gardens have brought people much more than fresh fruits and vegetables. With food prices on the rise and so many of us losing touch with the abundance of our communities, we thought it’d be nice to hear how community gardens have helped you, our community.

🌎 See photos of our contributors and find further reading in the full show notes.

📞 We'd love to hear from you! Season 3 submissions coming soon!

📱 To join the Commons community, download the app.

📷 Follow Second Nature on Instagram.

Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Dr. Sheridan Ross, Alexa Rivera, Clara, Nick Blocha, Camille
• Editing and engineer: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

• (00:00) - Introduction and the origin of community gardens
• (03:49) - Dr. Sheridan Ross in Compton Community Garden
• (06:54) - Nick in Illinois
• (09:05) - Camille in San Diego, California
• (10:29) - Alexa in Los Angeles, California
• (13:10) - Clara in Floripa, Brazil

The secondhand clothing market isn't equipped for textile recycling. So when your donated clothes don't sell, where do they end up?

With the rise of overconsumption and fast fashion, clothes have piled up in thrift stores, landfills, and incinerators around the world. Countries like Ghana and Chile are dealing with fashion waste from countries like the U.S., UK, and China, and the impacts are vast.

Mountains of clothes lead to fires, polluted waterways, dying ocean life, and lost livelihoods. So how do we stop the cycle? How can we donate with purpose and dignity, and get fashion brands to actually take accountability for the full lifecycle of their clothes?

Listen to hear what our community does with their used clothes, how a new law could force companies to clean up their act, and how Los Angeles's Suay Sew Shop is dealing with the untenable amount of clothing donations from wildfire relief.

➡️ If you want to support Suay Sew Shop, you can browse their site here and contribute to their Textiles Aren't Trash fire relief campaign. By the way, you can earn rewards for Suay purchases and donations in the Commons app!

🌎 See photos of our contributors and find further reading in the full show notes.

📞 We'd love to hear from you! Season 3 submissions coming soon!

📱 To join the Commons community, download the app.

📷 Follow Second Nature on Instagram.

Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Holly Kane, Maya Roman, Nate Rauh-Bieri, Nick
• Editing and engineer: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

• (00:01) - Introduction
• (02:45) - Mirrored catastrophes in Ghana and California amplify the clothing crisis
• (06:43) - Community voices: What do you do with clothes you don't want anymore?
• (10:00) - Direct vs indirect donations
• (12:00) - An interview with Sumaq Alvarado del Aguila, one of the leaders at SUAY Sew Shop — an LA-based vertical sewing and production shop that's recycling millions of pieces of clothing
• (30:17) - Sanchali shares progress for clothing company regulation and responsibility
• (35:12) - Last looks and points to remember

In a capitalist society, value is measured in dollars and cents. But the resources we take from planet Earth can't be repaid in any kind of financial currency, and we're already paying the price for the debt we owe.

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So the question on many people's minds is "Can we even have ethical consumption under capitalism?" In this episode, we find out that despite having differing opinions on the answer to that question, we often agree on the solutions for what comes next.

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Listen to hear how our community answers the title question, economist and sociologist Juliet Schor helps us plan for what comes next, and Commons founder and CEO Sanchali Seth Pal explains how modern and historical boycotts can be tools for collective action.

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➡️ If you want to vote with your dollar, join our April challenge in the Commons app (available in U.S. and Canada) This Earth Month, we're avoiding the brands spending millions to block climate progress.

🌎 See photos of our contributors and find further reading in the full show notes.

📞 We'd love to hear from you! Season 3 submissions coming soon!

📱 To join the Commons community, download the app.

📷 Follow Second Nature on Instagram.

Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Shai, Nicole Wiegman, Tessa Maurer, Paulina Acosta, Haley Kline Murphy, Marina Savarese, Bhaskar, Haley, Maya Roman, Marta De Prisco
• Editing and engineer: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (04:58) - Community montage: "Can we have ethical consumption under capitalism?"
• (08:36) - Earth Overshoot Day
• (10:11) - Interview with Juliet Schor, economist and sociologist
• (24:13) - Interview with Sanchali Seth Pal on the power of collective action and boycotts
• (32:19) - Outro