Skip to main content

Thrift stores contribute sustainability fashionably

Disposable clothing at landfill
In this world of instant gratification, ‘disposable fashion’ is on the rise. Increasing quantities of discarded clothing being sent to landfill becomes problematic. More and more pieces and garments that are manufactured quickly and cheaply to keep up with catwalk trends. More styles mean more purchases and that leads straight to more waste created. The clothing is not made well enough in the first place to allow repairing it to be and option, and it is sold cheap enough to encourage customers to just buy another in the new pattern or colour of the trend. Once the trend is over, these garments are ended in landfill site globally due to the poor quality.  Unlike world class quality of garments that can handed down to next generations disposable clothing is damaging to our environment and the economy. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 1.5 million tons of textile waste was generated in 2013, of which 12.8 million tons were discarded.
Fashion items at thrift store

Developed countries get rid of their excess clothing otherwise end up in landfill sites is by donating it to developing countries. Thrift stores are good solution to solve these problems, by keep things out of the landfill. They are not only great for value, but they are also great for the environment and community development. Everyone can benefit from low-cost, environmentally sound, practice of second-hand purchasing. The more people shop for second hand items, the fewer items need to be produced and can lower the carbon footprint. Ever hear the saying, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?” By purchasing a gently used item, we can help to keep things in circulation that would have gone into a landfill. Garments from thrift stores can assured that it will fit since these items have all been pre-washed, no shrinking. Most thrift stores give tokens instead of plastic bags at check-out which can be donated to a variety of charities designated by each store, keeping plastic bags out of the environment. When a new item is manufactured, there are a certain amount of carbon emissions produced in not only the creation of that product but also in the shipping required. Items from thrift stores doesn’t come with that environmental price tag twice, we can cut the carbon emissions out. The flow of second-hand goes both ways, we can donate back items we no longer use to local thrift stores and offer up goods another maybe searching for. This act of recycling not only enables us to feel good about our actions but again keeps money in the local economy and supports sustainability. 

Source-http://m.southbendtribune.com/news/local/thrift-stores-sell-damaged-items-to-textile-recyclers/article_21a785fc-08df-11e4-ad94-001a4bcf6878.html
Image sources- https://www.trustedclothes.com/blog/2016/09/05/fast-fashion-landfills/
https://www.arflife.org/thrift-store-199

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Start the fight

Most people don’t realize that food waste goes beyond the moral implications, wasting food when one billion people go to bed hungry every night and it is also a major environmental problem. It is so sad that we have the power to feed the hungry with all of the food we waste and yet we just throw it into the garbage. Food production is also the largest single driver of biodiversity loss and creates at least 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to wasting labor and resources, as food decomposes in landfills it produces methane, a greenhouse gas. Food waste is occur in the field, in storage, in transport, and at home. Everyone including farmers, food manufacturers, and consumers are responsible for food waste footprints. Despite what many consumers think, expiry dates are unregulated and do not indicate food safety. One of the best ways to tell if food has gone bad is not by using some fancy technology, but by simply putting our senses to w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Living smaller and closer

As population density increase, the distance between people and their destinations decrease. Can reduces energy use, carbon emission, and waste in all sectors of city. The most important factor is automobile use, which is bad for the environment not only because they directly consume fuel and emit pollutants but because they facilitate the creation of far greater sources of energy and environmental damage. Automobile usage also encourage sprawling communities, over sized dwellings, inefficient commerce, and huge networks of redundant urban infrastructure. Density allows people walk from place to place due to proximity of services. Dense urban centers offer one of the few plausible templates for addressing one of the world’s most discouraging environmental illness, climate change. We need to find ways to reduce the size of our living spaces, and decrease the distance between ourselves and our destinations, and begin to step ourselves away from our near total dependence on automobil...
Post a Comment
Read more

Less is more

Necessities and well-made special things that bring us happiness are great, but needless stuff are wasteful to produce, package and ship and once we start drowning in our stuff we either suffer from the stress of it or we end up send it packing to the landfill, where it may endure for many lifetimes. And while swapping and sharing and donating may postpone stuff's trip to landfill site, it still weighs heavy on the planet. Our obsession with owning needless things becomes nightmare to our planet. It’s time for us to start practicing minimalism and enjoy the beauty of simple living. We can take a stand and maximize the principles of minimalism to counter attack with less to discover how little we actually need to be happier, more content, and less stressed in life and also contribute towards sustainability by consuming less. Minimalism is just keeping things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from it to improve in almost all aspects of our life. The...
Post a Comment
Read more