Sustainability at Renn Fayre

Renn Fayre is fast approaching (about two more weeks to go)! As you prepare your costumes and decorations, the Sustainability Office wanted to offer some ideas on making your Renn Fayre more sustainable for yourself and the environment. 

But first, a very important message from the fish in the Canyon: please do not buy/wear/use plastic glitter. Glitter is wonderful, so if you’d like to use it, please consider biodegradable glitter. Glitter falls off wherever you go and will get washed into the Canyon. Every year after Renn Fayre, there is significant buildup of microplastics in the canyon that present a health risk for the watershed and everything that lives there. While biodegradable glitter isn’t a perfect solution (it’s best to avoid using it at all), it's certainly better than plastics. Mica/borosilicate makeup is also another option, though it’s important to look into where a cosmetic company sources mica due to labor practices surrounding mica mining.

So, where can you get biodegradable glitter? Well, lucky for you, there’s lots of options! Ecoglitter is a local Portland business that sells biodegradable glitter. This can be bought at Red Light Clothing Exchange (3590 SE Hawthorne Blvd), Memento PDX (3707 SE Hawthorne Blvd), Lippman Company (50 SE Yamhill St), and Oodles 4 Kids (7727 SE 13th Ave). These are all pretty close to campus. Another option is from bulkglitters.com which has a whole catalogue of biodegradable/environmentally friendly glitter.

If you’re planning on wearing more than just glitter, you might be thinking about costumes as well. And guess what, there’s a lot of options for getting items secondhand! It’s cheaper, more fun, and avoids the waste associated with single-wear polyester costumes. Polyester Amazon-sourced Renn Fayre costumes are something we get a lot of donations at move-out and usually they have to go in the dumpster because we can’t donate them due to their quality. But lucky for you, we live in the capital of sustainable fashion and craft options, such as:

• Goodwill on Woodstock/52nd or Grand/SE 6th are the closest locations. There’s also the bins in Milwaukie if you’re feeling particularly adventurous.

• Village Merchants on SE Division, a cavernous secondhand store with great curation – they sell clothing, shoes, accessories, craft supplies, jewelry, you name it!

• Scrap PDX on SE 6th, a secondhand craft store with all kinds of items.

• ReClaim It! on N Killingsworth, a secondhand building material/craft/creative reuse store.

• Hollywood Vintage on NE Sandy is particularly great for costume pieces.

• Facebook marketplace

• PDX Craigslist

• Swap Shop

• Renn Fayre Costume Shop on April 22 from 5-9pm in Winch – drop in for free craft supplies and materials to complete your costume dreams.

Thank you so much for helping us make Renn Fayre as low-waste as possible.