In the case of our beloved flea market tradition, digital technology doesn’t disrupt but enhance it
From communication and finance to information dissemination, digital technology has disrupted how things were done in the last decade. In the wake of progress, people have also noted how certain traditions, jobs, and even lifestyle habits were rendered obsolete.
As we approach the middle of the 2020s, however, one lifeway beloved by many Filipinos has been further enhanced by the democratization of mobile internet and smartphones: Your neighborhood ukay-ukay.
Data released by one of Southeast Asia’s big reselling platforms shows that Filipinos are some of the largest users in the region, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, in terms of both buyers and sellers, with sellers making an average of P39,000.00 in 2024.
Filipinos led in Southeast Asia when it came to women’s fashion—a testament to our ukay culture. The same platform likened this to 2,544 tons of carbon dioxide offset. The data was gathered from January 1 to October 31, 2024.
Top search words from the Philippines included “bag” and “dress” and fast fashion brands Uniqlo and Zara while also reflecting aspirational purchasing through searches for Coach and Kate Spade. Interestingly, said online platform also allows users to donate items, and clothes were the top item given freely by its Filipino user base.
Meanwhile, in terms of technology, while iPhones from the last five years remained the most popular search, there was an interesting spike in Gen Z users searching for digicams.
Top search words from the Philippines included “bag” and “dress” and fast fashion brands Uniqlo and Zara while also reflecting aspirational purchasing through searches for Coach and Kate Spade
Is this a sign that we’re umay na with being online 24/7 and the constant scrutiny of it all? All while still wanting to document what’s dear to us? Similar to the Western Zillennials opting for ‘dumb phones’?
These developments were touted by the same company as good for users’ pockets (savings for the buyers, earnings for the sellers), and the planet, clarifying that they used “years watching Netflix straight” as a barometer for carbon dioxide emissions.
Over the decades, scientists have warned that rising carbon dioxide emissions from industrial activity would trap heat in the atmosphere, causing storms to strengthen, as ecosystems from polar ice caps to forests suffer from temperature imbalances, ultimately affecting the earth’s carrying capacity to sustain life.
A 2022 United Nations report indicts fashion for contributing to 10 percent of global carbon emissions. The same report also highlights fashion’s negative impacts in terms of water consumption and micro plastic fibers, ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 tons, released into the oceans via wastewater.
I’d be more wary of that vongole pasta if I were you.
While secondhand buying is not the solution to an environmental crisis exacerbated by consumerism and consumption—fast fashion and retail gadgets included—the fact that Filipinos prefer pre-loved is still one step in reducing waste and, in the long run, reducing demand for producing more new goods.
There was a time when people bought technology and clothes to last for years, and the fact that we now want to give these things a second life, whether out of nostalgia or economic limits, is in a way countercultural in a world where FOMO-based marketing has pushed the bottomline at the expense of people and the planet.
Just take it from Miss Earth candidate and environmental activist Jessica Lane, who, through repeating a dress in three big public occasions (le gasp!), has shown, by example, that her advocacy doesn’t end at coronation night and that the action still continues when the lights and cameras go out.