Reduce the Harm:
Reuse Clothing by Shopping at Thrift Stores

Clothes shopping at thrift store will cut your cost for clothes significantly and can add surprisingly great pieces to your wardrobe. Even better, "buying second-hand clothing comes at no cost to the environment" (eartheasy.com).

The environmental impact of clothing production is huge. A leading example, "cotton is the world's most polluting crop, responsible for 25% of all pesticide use in the world each year, hundreds of thousands of cases of chemical poisoning and massive damage to the environment." You may also be concerned with " issues of worker's rights and animal welfare" when attempting to truly shop green (greenchoices.org).

You can make a difference with your shopping choices. To begin with, "it’s worth thinking about how much you really need and want – whether your clothes are giving you the satisfaction the shops and adverts seem to promise." You can also reuse, reclaim, or recycle your own clothing, by making new useful things from them or channeling them to others through clothing thrift stores or thread recycling agencies (greenchoices.org).

Community Exemplar: CJ Chacon, a thrift store shopper

Many people in our community shop at thrift stores. For example CJ Chacon shops at thrift stores instead of retail stores. When asked how shopping at thrift stores benefits him and the envrionment, CJ stated “ It benefits me because I'm able to purchase clothing at a cheaper price and it benefits the environment because I am reusing clothing, which means I am not contributing to the production of products.” CJ introduced this idea to many of is friends and it has become quite a fashion trend.

There are many useful things you can do with clothes after you’ve finished with them. Here are just a few: You could take your old clothes and shoes to jumble sales, charity shops or car boot sales. You could try homemade recycling and turn your old clothes into cleaning cloths, covers, or fancy dress costumes. You could take your old clothes to one of more than 6000 recycling banks across the country. You can recycle shoes too, but remember to tie them together in pairs so they don’t get separated. More than half of the textiles thrown away could be recycled – yet only 14% of our clothing waste is recycled or reused.