Piggybacking off of yesterday’s post where I talked about getting rid of 10 items in your wardrobe by doing the Trimm Challenge, I’m oh so excited to talk a little bit about what I have just learned about as a solution to recycle my previously loved clothing!
Before I dive in, let me tell you a little back story on what my closet looked like 4 years ago.
About 4 years ago, I had a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear, I was part of the 100 pairs of shoe’s club, and I basically didn’t know a thing about where my clothing would go after I donated it.
On a sunny Saturday morning I set out to change my own stars so to speak, poured myself a glass of wine, turned on some booty poppin’ hip hop, and covered all of my husbands and I’s 600 square foot apartment in shoes and clothing. It was the only morning in my life I have ever had wine and it was weird (I do not recommend ha).
Moving on… I set out to downsize to a capsule wardrobe and ended up with about 8 large bags of clothing that I decided to (as you probably would guess) sell to secondhand shops and donate.
At the time had little to no idea of the environmental impact donated clothing that does not sell had on our planet and fellow people. And really I didn’t start learning about it until about 7-8 months ago when I watched a documentary called “The True Cost” that highlights the behind the scenes of what is happening in the industry (you can find it on Netflix if you’re interested).
It was there that my wheels started turning and I started to research to learn more.
And what I came across was this: only about 20% of the clothing that we donate actually gets sold or is given to those in need. The rest goes into landfills polluting our air, soil, and water causing harm to our planet and what’s worse our fellow humans.
I also learned, according to the EPA, that on average Americans are throwing away 80 pounds of clothing per person per year on top of that!
So what have I done with this information?
For a while, I have been working really hard to sell as many of my lightly loved items on Poshmark. I’ve done this for a lot of reasons – definitely to have a fund that goes back into my wardrobe and blog – but on a deeper level it slows me down to be thankful and it keeps a lot of my items from potentially not selling at resale shops, which means they ultimately are staying out of landfills.
But here has been my struggle… what do I do with all of the worn down clothing, the old undies and socks, the shirts and pants with stains and holes? The things I don’t want to even donate?
Finally, I have the answer!
The Clean Out Bag is a recycling program started by Brass, a female owned, transparent fashion company with the heart to help women streamline their wardrobes with functional pieces.
They send you a bag that only costs $10 that you can fill with 5 pounds worth of clothing that will go straight to their recycling partner.
I was overjoyed to learn about this program from Brass because I finally have a solution for getting rid of clothing without creating more waste.
This time around I am planning to take the pieces that are too worn from my Winter Trimm and to go through my lounge, underwear, and sock drawers as well to recycle anything else that isn’t in great shape.
But I got to thinking, it would be totally doable to do this after every Trimm Challenge, and if I did this 4 times a year then that would be reducing my potential waste by a fourth! A fourth!!!! That’s crazy to me and so simple.
So I encourage you to do the same, even if you don’t plan to do the Trimm Challenge, anytime you are going to throw out or donate a bulk of worn clothing, why not purchase a bag and send your clothing to a place that is making the world we live in better… 5 pounds at a time.
Annnd if you’re interested now, I’ve partnered with Brass to give away 10 free Clean Out Bags to the first 10 to enter this code MARYBETHCLEANOUT you can get it here.
I am so thankful for the journey that I have been through with my relationship with clothes because I have learned so much about myself, about people, and about the planet. And I’m looking forward to learning more and more as I take steps to recycle and be a conscious consumer!
I hope you join me!
Soo much love,
Mary Beth
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I live in Norway, and here you can donate clothes to the Salvation army. What they don’t sell, they redesign through a work experience-program, make into rags, use as stuffing in cushions, or weave into rag runners. This started a few years back, when they started thinking about these problems with landfills. So now you can donate everything to them, even the worn out items that you before had to throw away.