RECYCLING CLOTHES IS A GREAT GREEN ACT
Perhaps you are already recycling your food containers, paper products and other recyclable waste. Way to go! You've made great leaps towards a greener lifestyle and a smaller footprint on the earths' finite resources.
How about adding buying used clothing and also recycling your used clothing to your list of green acts. The processes used to make clothing are are all a drain on the planets' sustainability. Growing the plant crop, turning the fibre into thread and then fabric, dyeing & conditioning the fabric, stitching it together into clothing, packaging it, shipping it, warehousing it and then, later, transporting it to the landfill or dump site after it has been barely used.
The potential for an important act of green in this arena is enormous. And the money savings are huge too. How can you go wrong with this one?
Obviously, buying organic clothing in the first place is a great way one to green up your clothes buying choices.
Buying clothes that are previously owned or second hand as well will make your efforts worth even more. For every piece of clothing we buy that is NOT brand new, we are saving many of earths' resources from being over extended.
And if you find used clothing that started out organic, then that's a double bonus! Organic clothes have been on the market for over a decade now and there are lots of high quality, second hand items being offered for sale, in the classified ads, flea markets, garage sales, Salvation Army Stores and on-line used clothing websites. The great thing about organic clothes, is that they are high quality and show very little wear even after they've been worn for awhile.
When our kids were young, we definitely bought second hand clothing for them (there was no such thing as organic clothing for kids back then). We found that the Sally Anne Store in our little town actually had very nice quality, designer clothes for kids priced at only $1.00 per item. Clothes of such high quality were not even available in our area let alone for a dollar. On top of that, the brand new clothes in the local department stores were total crap with a big fat price tag, tha would not even last out a week of my kids wear & tear lifestyle. For instance, a used high quality pair of designer jeans cost $1.00 at the used clothing stores. Compare that to the brand new, poor quality jeans in the stores that were priced at $40.00.
You do the math.
The other side of recycling is that you do NOT throw away clothing. When you no longer want an item of clothing, store it in a bin or bag. When that container is full of your old clothes, take them to a second hand clothing store near you, or give them away to friends & family, or sell them on consignment, or list them on ebay. We must take the time to participate at both ends of the recycling issue.
It would be great to practice both: (1) buy recycled clothes, and (2) keep our own clothes out of the garbage by taking it somewhere to be reused.
The potential for an important act of green in this arena is enormous. And the money savings are huge too. How can you go wrong with this one?
Better Quality
Lower Price
Less Negative Impact on the Environment
You gotta love it!
VISIT OUR SECOND HAND
& USED CLOTHING DEPARTMENT