I went through my wardrobe this fall and made a decision. I was going to Kondo the heck out of my clothing. Things that don't fit, don't look good, are worn to shreds, or I just don't wear were going out of my house.
But wait! What about the environment?
I have always worn my clothing to shreds. I'm not someone who buys things, wears them six times and throws them out. When I'm done with clothing it's not fit to be worn anymore. But this time, I was going to get rid of some perfectly good items for almost the first time. But I don't want this to all go into a landfill. So I asked myself what are my options?
For the shreds, I had taken these to H&M for fabric recycling (pre-pandemic). However they're not currently offering that service in my area because of COVID. I had a look on the internet, but there don't seem to be any consumer-level fabric recycling services in my area. So for now, sadly, the landfill is my only viable option.
For decent, but fast-fashion clothing, it's off to the clothing donation bin. I'm sad to know that these will still most likely end up in the landfill, but it's not clear to me what to do otherwise.
For my better clothing, there is a local second-hand shop which will consign clothing, so I'm going to try that for the first time. At least there's a decent chance of some clothes being worn by another person! This is new territory for me, so a small win for shifting my paradigms!
But my question is this: why are my options limited? As a consumer, why is this so dang hard to properly dispose of used clothing in a way that doesn't have the clothing end up in a landfill? The answer must be that governments need to do better at regulating these waste streams, and clothing manufacturers need to do a better job of providing higher quality, longer lasting clothing, and also offer ways to return, reuse, or repurpose used product. We can't just leave this thinking to consumers!
What are some ways that you get rid of old clothing? Are there good recycling systems where you live?
Happy reading,
Rachel
Oh, and P.S. -- I bought my first second-hand item of clothing. It smells like old lady perfume, but I'm sure that will come out in the wash!
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