this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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Buy it for Life
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Who throws clothes in the trash? I almost never do that.
If it's OK and just doesn't fit I donate it. Some of them get cut up to be dust cloths. And when my underwear is literally falling apart I might throw it away. Maybe.
HUGE amounts of clothes are being trashed, many of them new; never worn. I wish I kept the link around. There were several articles in the past few years showing massive piles of clothes along the coastline of some poverty-stricken countries, with all the dyes leeching into the ocean. Fast fashion is the culprit.
Probably what disgusts me the most are political campaign t-shirts. Surely it’s the worst instance of obsolescence by design in clothing. Andrew Yang claimed to be an environmentalist yet his campaign t-shirts were made of non-sustainable cotton. Attempts to spotlight that were censored by Reddit.
All the charities collecting clothes in my area are fussy. They want no flaws, and they want clothes to be cleaned. Apparently there is no infrastructure for repairing them or even simply washing them. Neighbors don’t bother.. they just stuff a trash bag with clothes and put it out with other trash. Sometimes someone notices that and tears open the bag and rifles through it for stuff. I’ve moved into places where the previous tenant just left clothes and blankets behind. I dumped them in the clothing donation bins anyway, without washing. But it’s dicey.. I could just be adding to their burden and have no idea if the clothes and blankets get used.
Even some underwear or old tshirts can be cut up and used to clean stuff like bike chains, dry car rims if you are washing the wheels, and clean gun barrels after shooting and oiling them. Cotton tends to work better.