Garb Go-Round : Recycling of clothing in thrift shops and elsewhere keeps tons and tons from taking up vital landfill space.
This Halloween, why not go to a vintage clothing shop for your kids’ get-ups? And while you’re there, you might find something you want for yourself--for year-round wear.
“Dressing fit-to-kill for Halloween with vintage clothes can lead to doing it again,” quipped Georgia Madrid of Ladies and Gentlemen, haute couture consignment shop in Ventura.
Of course, this is not a radical idea in these recessionary times. Indeed, Goodwill stores are advertising used clothes on the radio with ads as slick as The Broadway’s. And Ventura County’s Goodwill stores have received special supplies of children’s Halloween costumes.
But what’s environmental here?
Well, it may come as a surprise--it did to me--to learn that reusable clothing now takes up two to three times as much space in local landfills as those notorious non-reusable diapers. While America has failed to stop using and tossing the diapers, it could make a big difference with used clothing.
Nationwide, more than four million tons of textiles are tossed into landfills annually. In Ventura County this year, textiles will account for more than 20 tons, said Victoria Hand of the county’s Integrated Waste Management Board.
“People often ask us what more they can do (to solve the landfill problem),” Hand explained. “Well, next time you have clothes to get rid of, give them to a charity or take them to a consignment shop for resale.”
The recycling of clothing is big business--yet another reason to “buy-in” by either purchasing used clothing at, say, a consignment store, or by sending your relics back into the marketplace by, say, dumping them into a Goodwill bin.
If you should consider buying a costume from a consignment or thrift store this year, consider what’s behind it.
The gathering of clothing by charities--Salvation Army, Easter Seal Society, American Cancer Society and Goodwill among them--produces an enormous yield: 100 million tons annually. Happily, these clothes stay out of the landfills. About half of them wind up at retail thrift stores of the charities, giving you a rather large selection.
The other half, however, are baled up and purchased by more than 300 competing firms in the recycling business. These firms, however, separate wheat from chaff all over again: They resort the clothing to find worthy articles for a largely export retail market.
Dr. Edward Stuben, chairman of Trans America Trading and chairman of the Council for Textile Recycling, said the resorting breaks the worthy clothing down into more than 100 categories--20 for men’s jeans alone. “I can get a pair of pants to Africa for 34 cents where the man sells them to people for a dollar,” he said. As a result, Stuben said council members want to expand their purchase of used clothing by 30% because of foreign demand. What doesn’t make the final retail market cut goes to recycling--again, not to a landfill.
Clearly, used clothing pays.
In Southern California, it’s all too clear, ironically. Sonny Rattle of Atlas Mill Supply in Los Angeles actually laments the area’s trend toward yard sales and consignment store shopping. As one of the wholesalers who buys leftovers from charities, it cuts into his supply line. “We can’t get enough material (unsold by thrift stores) to meet the demand overseas. We’re bringing in stuff from the Middle West.”
That’s a nice problem for us to have, perhaps.
But even so, our landfills are seeing too many clothes that could have found a home in this important market.
Halloween is a good time to make that choice by fashioning a costume that won’t end up, finally, in the wrong place.
Here’s a suggestion from a bracing new book on how to lower our personal “environmental impact” on the planet, titled “Your Money or Your Life,” by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin: “Box everything you haven’t worn in the last year and put it in storage. Next time you crave something new, go to that box instead of the store. You’ll be delighted at the old friends you find there.”
I would add that on that occasion, if you don’t find anything you want to personally recycle, you should call a thrift or consignment shop to come and get it.
FYI
For the latest “Ventura County Thrift Store and Consignment Shop Directory,” specifying which ones accept and sell clothing and also have pickup service, call 654-2889.
Special notice to Earthwatch readers: Of course, secondhand stores aren’t the only places to “shop with the Earth in mind.” That’s the slogan of the city of Ventura recycling office’s program of Environmental Shopping Tours at nine local supermarkets. You can sign up for a November tour near you and discover which new products in the stores reduce waste and save money. Co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Ventura County. For information and reservations call 650-0884.
