A woman from Shandong born in 1998, Su Yige, has gone eight years without buying new clothes or using sanitary pads or tissues, sourcing all her clothing and household items from secondhand platforms. Her lifestyle drew widespread attention after being covered by media, bringing the topic of "secondhand clothing as a low-carbon lifestyle" back into the public eye.

Key Points

  • Su Yige, a 28-year-old woman from Shandong, has gone eight years without buying new clothes, purchasing all clothing and household items through secondhand channels.
  • She replaced disposable sanitary pads with a medical-grade silicone menstrual cup, which she says can last five to ten years.
  • She replaced tissues with water-rinsed handkerchiefs and refuses to pressure others in daily life to follow her example.

Not a Single New Garment in Her Wardrobe
Su Yige is 28 this year and has essentially bid farewell to disposable consumer products for eight years. Her wardrobe contains no new clothes; her daily outfits and household items are all bought from secondhand platforms. In her view, clothes can be worn as long as they are wearable, and choosing old clothes both reduces resource waste and represents a hands-on way to support sustainable consumption. She noted that the apparel industry is one of the major sources of carbon emissions, which is precisely why she makes secondhand clothing her everyday choice.

Menstrual Cup Instead of Sanitary Pads: From Disposable to Reusable
For personal care, Su Yige uses a menstrual cup instead of sanitary pads. She explained that the cup is made of medical-grade silicone, which is relatively safe and can be used long-term, with a lifespan of about five to ten years; disposable sanitary pads, by contrast, take hundreds of years to degrade and generate enormous amounts of plastic waste. Her motivation for choosing the menstrual cup is to reduce this kind of hard-to-degrade waste.

Handkerchiefs Instead of Tissues: Willing to Spend a Few Extra Minutes Washing
In daily life, Su Yige does not use tissues, replacing them with water-rinsed handkerchiefs. She believes that tissues are often used for just a few seconds—many people wipe their hands once and throw them away, which is clearly wasteful. Although handkerchiefs require a few minutes to wash, each use means less disposable paper consumed, and she feels the time investment is worthwhile.

An Environmental Attitude That Doesn't Guilt-Trip Others
In her interactions with those around her, Su Yige does not ask others to replicate her lifestyle. She says environmental protection is not self-sacrifice but a choice that follows one's own heart; she is willing to spend a little more time for the environment but will not impose her standards on others. This attitude has also earned her considerable respect.

Implications for the Industry
Su Yige's story has been widely discussed because it extends secondhand clothing consumption from the context of "saving money" to the context of "cutting emissions"—secondhand garments and reusable daily necessities are no longer symbols of financial hardship but low-carbon paths individuals can actively choose. For the used-clothing trade and resale industry, individual cases like this continually expand the social acceptance of secondhand consumption: as more consumers view wearing old clothes as an environmental action, platform supply, cross-border circulation, and grading standards for secondhand apparel gain a more stable demand base. It should be noted that Su Yige's approach is a personal lifestyle trade-off, and its emission-reduction effects are based on her own judgments about disposables and the apparel industry; ordinary consumers may not adopt it wholesale, and reducing waste in specific areas such as upcycling and reuse also constitutes tangible support for this industry.

Source: Shandong Girl Hasn't Used Sanitary Pads or Bought Tissues in 8 Years, Only Wears Secondhand Clothes: Her Low-Carbon Life Went Viral · Originally published 2026-10-07