When you first hear the phrase 'Zero Waste' you think of social justice pioneers screaming from their soap boxes about single use plastic. There is so much more that goes into living a zero waste lifestyle and one important factor is clothing.
Today's clothing is so cheaply made and cheaply priced that it makes it easy for people to buy for every season. What we don't realize in doing this, we are creating waste. SO MUCH WASTE! Think for a second how often you discard clothing. I bet it's around twice a year, usually before and after Winter. This is especially true with kids clothing. A lot of our clothing ends up is landfills, whether or not it was our intention for it to make it there after we've either donated it to charity or to Cousin Jane for her new little bundle of joy, it's true.
What's worse, is that with the creation of recycled textiles, a lot of our clothing is made from recycled plastic. Forcing the breakdown of microplastics into our wash, soil and the environment around us.
So how do we curb this??
Well, there are companies that make sustainable clothing that are not only made from biodegradable materials but also last a lot longer than polyester, nylon or even cotton clothing. But, and this is a big but...like anything that is eco-friendly, these types of clothing companies are expensive! So expensive, that the average family would not be able to sustain this type of wardrobe on the whole for very long, I know our family can't.
So I host clothing exchanges.
Along with another local momma, we host bi-annual clothing swaps.
What's a clothing swap?
A Clothing Swap is a meet up of people that bring the clothes they want to donate and exchange them free of charge with other locals for their donated clothing.
I have been doing exchanges like this for about three years now and they are fantastic at getting new to you clothes for absolutely free. We host the events at a local community center and charge nothing. It's simply a trade for clothing.
It's also a fantastic way to meet other like minded people in your community. Whether or not they are there for the same reasons, the goal is the same. Less clothes end up in a land fills, and more money in your pocket!
Want to host your own swap?
It may sound daunting to put something like this together, but really it's not hard.
Follow these steps to ensure a successful swap!
1. Call your local Town Clerk and ask about renting out the community center in your town/city. Ours happens to be the Senior Center, but any space will do. We actually started doing them in the local library, until we got too big and had to move to a bigger space.
2. Make a social media event page. We use Facebook.
Make sure you include address, time, and expectations to the event in the description. Our specific expectations include, only bringing one bag per person to donate, making sure people know to sort their own clothes before shopping and this is a big one we get asked a lot, you do not need to donate clothing to shop. Generally we have so many people willing to donate that the few that simply need to shop are able to do so.
3. Make signs for each type of clothing to hang in plain sight. We separate it by type of clothing, (pants, shirts, coats etc) Size, (this is mostly for the children's clothing) and Gender.
4. On the day of the event, make sure you have a 'drop off and sort time' and a 'shopping time'. This way everyone sorts their own clothes and then everyone is able to shop at the same time.
5. Once the event is over, clean up is pretty easy. Simply bag the remaining clothes.
For the clothing that is left over, because there will be clothing left over, it gets donated. We personally donate to local organizations that set up FREE shopping events. There are a few outreach programs in our area that offer free shops that have clothing, hygiene products, etc for people to come and take as they need. I like to stick to these organizations because they are non-profit and help the community greatly.
Our last event which was held early April had almost 100 people show! It was fantastic and I left with a whole bag filled with clothes.
A totally free, zero waste, new Summer wardrobe!
Let me know if you've hosted or been to a clothing swap and how it went!
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