Circular Thrift is two years old! In 2023 I left corporate America and dove right into exploring ways to reduce the industry’s impact on climate change and natural resource consumption by exploring circular fashion.
More than 22,000 units of clothing have gone through my temporary sort facility as I’ve experimented with ways to grow a local circular fashion economy. I now work with four organizations serving the local community to learn what they need and send them only exactly the clothing they need. I donate leftover, good quality clothing to CRIS, Sanctuary Night, Bishop Griffin Resource Center and Amethyst.
In addition to selling excess clothing in a virtual thrift shop, I also offer offline sales by riding around Bexley, Ohio on my trike to sell pre-loved and mended clothing. The latter has secured me local celebrity status, which delights me and intensely mortifies my kids. In these first two years I’ve hosted 23 events focused on building community around sustainable fashion.
Here are the top five things I think about regularly after 23 events and 24 months of circular fashion with Circular Thrift:
Andie MacDowell (and also the volume of textile waste). “I’ve gotten real concerned over what’s going to happen with all the garbage,” she said in Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 film Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Me too, girl. Me too. We need to pause to contemplate that 100 billion pieces of clothing are produced every single year. Eight billion people live on earth.
We are brainwashed by marketing. We don’t think we are. But we are. Buying things we don’t need is tied to so much of what we do with our friends. Eating and drinking often happens at places where we habitually buy things we don’t need. Our self-esteem is connected to buying things we don’t need. From both an environmental health and a mental health standpoint, it’s time for a rethink.
Let’s embrace courageous curiosity. There are immense learning gaps inside the textile industry. I was contacted by a man who runs a company that exports post-consumer textile waste. He reached out because he realized he doesn’t know what happens to the textile waste bales once he ships them off. What’s deemed of value? What materials are consistently landfilled? What’s the importing country’s waste infrastructure? He explained, “I am trying to find out: Am I the bad guy here?” I told him my honest opinion: Maybe. I suggested he do a bit of research to learn about where his post-consumer textile waste is going. I’m glad he reached out to ask the question.
Reuse is THE THING. It has to be, and it can be if reuse is done well. I want to continue to normalize exchange systems for people who can afford to buy new so they often consider reuse rather than purchasing something brand new every time. A pile of clothing in a garment factory before it’s pressed, tagged, and shipped to a brand doesn’t look all that different from the pile of clothing you threw onto the floor during your last glorious closet clean out aided by Adele and a flat white. Once that pile of closet castaways is nicely folded and neatly organized at a community clothing exchange, that pile of pre-loved clothes will easily find new closets to call home and stay in circulation within your community. We can even play Adele at the clothing swap.
Humans crave community. People look for me and offer their help because I’m doing something a little different, and because I offer an interesting way to be around other people. I am inspired by this and want to learn more. There is real potential for regular people to affect real change in their local communities partly because people like to do good, fun things together.
Speaking of sustainable communities…
We’re soft launching the new Circular Thrift Community this week. We’ve created a Playbook with eight courses to empower passionate people to spark change in their local communities. We’ve also launched a Slack Workspace devoted to supporting passionate people in their sustainability efforts. When we work together as a community, small actions at a hyperlocal level can have a big impact as people start to rethink consumption habits.
We’re kicking off this membership at $10/month, which helps fund some of the ongoing costs associated with our efforts. Join the Circular Thrift Community, and let’s make a difference together.
