SAN ANTONIO — Note: The above video is from a September, 2018 story.
Now that spring is here, people are combing through their closets to decide what clothes to keep or toss aside. However, one preferred option to throwing away clothes is selling or buying secondhand fashion and joining the clothes-recycling revolution.
That’s the crusade for local women who are spring-cleaning their closets, selling their clothes and buying secondhand wardrobes to help the planet. No need for new clothes!
It’s all part of the "Stop Clothes Pollution" education campaign, launched just in time for spring-cleaning and Earth Day by Clothes Mentor, a women’s resale clothes store.
What is the "Stop Clothes Pollution" Campaign?
- Visit their local store and sell your gently worn clothes or accessories for cash on the spot or store credit. Use the cash or credit to buy secondhand garments.
- You help save the planet because instead of throwing out clothes and clogging landfills, you sell your items and you use the money you make to buy someone else’s clothes.
The ecological benefits
So what kind of impact would you be making by participating? Here's how much the manufacturing of new clothes contributes to global pollution:
- Producing one pair of jeans requires 75 pounds of carbon dioxide (The EPA says rising levels of carbon dioxide are hazardous to our health).
- It takes 700 gallons of water to make one new T-shirt. That’s enough water to fill 10 kiddie pools.
- 1 in 2 people are throwing unwanted clothes straight in the trash.
- 645 million garments produced each year clog our nation’s landfills.
What more could I be doing?
Here are four tips to cut your clothes carbon footprint:
- Buy mostly secondhand clothes.
- If you buy new, make sure you wear the item more than once: 208 million tons of waste were generated by single use outfits in 2019. (Source: Green Story Inc. Environmental Study)
- Rent clothes for special occasions: If everyone wore a thrifted outfit to a wedding next year, that would be the equivalent of taking 56 million cars off the road for a day. (Source: Green Story Inc. Environmental Study)
- Reduce carbon footprint when washing clothes: You'll be helping the environment out by air-drying, washing with cold water and refraining from dry-cleaning.
- Air dry clothes
- Wash on cold
- Don’t dry clean
What’s hot in secondhand fashion?
- Zoom clothes, or anything colorful or sparkly you can wear from the waist up to shine on zoom calls.
- Leisure clothes, such as yoga pants and loose sweatshirts for people who want to be comfortable working from home.
- Comfy sneaker shoes that you can wear inside the house or outside to run errands.