The Concept of Thrift
Thrifting is when you reduce, reuse, and recycle materials with an economic aspect. You use what you need without spending large amounts of money and then the materials go back into the cycle of being reused. Kids have a great understanding of recycling. When you want to throw out a cardboard box, the average child would say “don’t! I want to use it to make a robot head or a cardboard box house.” We start out life with an understanding of the value of a second life for a product. So where did that mindset go? At what age did we start throwing away cardboard boxes and losing our creativity? Many of the products we use today are replaceable. When we get a new shiny item, it is because we threw away the old one. Although this seems great at the moment, it proposes a problem. When you throw these things away you are throwing them into a landfill. Landfills do not go away; they only continue to increase. As of 2018, landfills collect about 1.3 billion tons of trash a year. At the rate we are progressing, this will be up to 4 billion tons by 2100. A solution to this is thrifting. This includes the infiltration of the idea that when using a product, we consider the materials that go into the product and how they can be used again once you have gotten your use out of it.
Now let’s talk about thrift stores. Commonly named, Goodwill, Secondhand Store, Salvation Army, and Vintage Flea, these are stores where you can take your gently used clothes and give them to someone else. By shopping at thrift stores you are more likely to find vintage, original pieces that have already been worn in and loved. You are able to avoid the feeling that you get when you put on a new pair of jeans, and you feel like you just shoved your legs into two paper-mâché tunnels. These items of clothing have been stretched, worn, and loved, and even better, they are a fraction of the cost that they would be if they were brand new. Now yes, some items taken to thrift stores have been loved a little too much and they may be nearing the end of their life cycle. But one of the biggest excitements of thrift stores is digging through the slightly raggedy items in order to find the hidden gems. Overall, thrifting is a great alternative to shopping at mainstream stores while being conscious of the concepts of reducing, reusing, and recycling.
Reduce, Reuse & Recycle
Although it is great to shop at thrift stores, it would be much more difficult to shop if they had minimal clothing items to sell. That is why it is equally important to give to these secondhand stores as it is to shop at them. The reoccurring theme of this concept is balance, evening out the cycle. In order to fill these stores with good products to shop from, you must do your part to donate anything that you are done using or don’t want anymore. Instead of throwing out your clothing, bring it to your local thrift store and encourage your peers to join you. By doing this, you’re contributing to balancing the cycle while also expanding the style of products being sold in these thrift stores. If you tell your friends about them and they donate too, you are more likely to find things that match your style. Now, I know what you’re thinking – how do I make money if I’m just giving away all of my old clothes? Along with your average small-town thrift stores, there is a new rise of online thrift stores that fall into the category of higher-end products. Companies like Poshmark, ThreadUp, and Mercari have created platforms to buy and sell your favorite gently used products in a quick and easy way. These options are a great alternative for those products that you have only used a couple of times and want to make money off of.
Another aspect of recycling is alteration. Some may think this is a bit extravagant for a piece of clothing but something as simple as cutting a shirt can make it your new favorite piece in your closet. We buy and wear clothing that fits our bodies nicely. Our bodies grow and change as we do, and this could modify the way your clothes fit as well as the way they make you feel. Along with body changes, trends and styles can also alter the way you want your clothes to fit. In the 90s the trend was low-waisted jeans and cutting the neck of your sweatshirt into a gaping hole. Looking back at that now, I’m a bit mortified but this just goes to show how different fits of clothes can change throughout time. Right now, a popular trend is cropped shirts and denim shorts. By taking some scissors and cutting the bottom of a shirt that you don’t love, you could create an entirely different shirt just by changing the way it fits. Maybe you have a pair of jeans with a hole or a stain on the bottom. Cut the jeans or get them altered into denim shorts and you have yourself a new pair of shorts to add to your collection. The next time you consider throwing away an item of clothing, channel your inner fashion designer and think about what you could do to alter the piece into a new, fun, and fresh product.