Reality TV star and now eco-conscious troll Heidi Montag had her followers furious after she promoted “single-use jeans.” As in denim that you only wear once and then throw out instead of washing.
It began with Instagram posts on Montag’s personal account and one on s1nglesjeans advertising the new pants. “No more shrinkage. No more fading colour. Just good vibes. You’ll always look your best because you’ll only wear @S1NGLESJEANS once. #ad,” the caption read, accompanying a photo of her floating in water.
Commenters on her original post were pissed: “There’s no way this is good for the environment.” “What in the actual oxymoron fuck is this?!?!” “This is so incredibly wasteful.” “I hate this soooo much.” “This is disgusting and better be a MF joke.”
Indeed, it was a MF joke. The big reveal came in the form of a video of Montag floating languidly under the word “STUPID.”
“Single-use jeans are dumb. As dumb as single-use plastic bottles. They have become part of our every day, and we no longer see how bad they are,” Montag says in a voiceover. “The stupidest single-use product is already out there. Polluting our ocean, help us save it.”
She asks viewers to sign the #refillagain petition from ocean conservation group Oceana and ad agency The Community. The campaign website urges viewers to push beverage companies to consider reusable bottles instead of disposable plastic bottles that are supposed to be recycled but often just end up in our landfills and in the oceans.
“Our campaign was designed to show the absurdity of single-use,” said Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vice president for strategic initiatives, in a press release. “In the case of soft drink companies — cited as the top polluting brands for the last three years by Break Free From Plastic — there is a proven and practical way to reduce throwaway plastic bottles by increasing the share of refillable bottles. If we want to save the oceans, we need to refill again.”
Oceana wants people to question the limited options we have as consumers. “Only 9% of plastic waste that’s been produced has been recycled… recycling generally doesn’t work, it’s a crazy system,” Littlejohn told Earther. “It’s a crazy kind of idea that we bought into [plastic pollution] because we’re just used to it.”
The idea of single-use jeans is clearly appalling, to the point that Heidi fans lost their shit — will they turn that same rage against single-use plastics?
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.