Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
Buy Used
Think of all the energy that goes into producing new clothes. Especially nowadays, when most of the clothes we buy in the Gap or Old Navy are made in Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, Malawi, China, India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Taiwan, Nepal… you get my point.
Consider the land and energy needed to grow the cotton or whatever else. Then the harvesting and transporting of that cotton to a factory, where it is made into cloth. Then the transporting of the cloth to another factory — maybe halfway around the world — where it is made into a shirt or a pair of shorts. Then the transportation across the world to your Gap store. That’s a lot of energy for a pair of shorts.
Now consider what it takes for me to get a used Gap sweater or some shorts. Someone in Denver realizes they’re just not going to wear that sweater anymore that Aunt Linda bought them for Christmas last year. They drive it down to the local Goodwill. Someone prices it and puts it on the shelf. I drive down to the same Goodwill a week later, buy the sweater, and take it home.
By buying used, I keep a sweater in circulation here in the States, I keep it from being sent back to Bangladesh or Malawi to be re-sold there for a dollar, and I lower demand (and therefore supply) for new sweaters, which span the globe before getting onto my back.
And I probably saved myself about $30.
I know — you’ll say it’s just weird to wear things that other people have sweat in. Well, all I can say to that is, get over it. One washing gets out all the germs, all the sweat, all the dirt that that random person put there. I’ve been wearing used clothes for several years now, and I haven’t gotten a single weird disease.
