Wanted: A Thriving American Reuse Market

Has your blogger been busy starting a store in the guest bedroom? No, this was just a sample of clothing, shoes, bags and other goods Steve and I rescued from a cruel and unusual fate in the landfill. Taking a Sunday drive to go to garage and estate sales to outfit our part of our new two family home, we happened upon a large pile of trash in River Edge, New Jersey, which we were drawn to because we saw a baker's rack and some other items. The woman saw us from her window and urged us to take anything. She needed to move in a hurry she said and was just getting rid of the items her and her three daughters (in their late teens and early twenties) accumulated. Luckily, Steve was driving a used minivan he bought this year, and we were able to take quite a bit. Later in the day, I told Steve, let's go back. I have a feeling there's a lot there and I can donate or give to my family and I can use some of it myself. We left with seven large contractor bags filled with goods. We saved so much, but it still haunts me what we didn't save here, and what's being thrown out every night in Anytown, USA.

A sampling of the bounty now NOT in the landfill:

For my mom: UGG boots (something she wouldn't buy new, but used, in good condition and free, yes!), several pairs of summer and winter shoes (she was actually shopping for the summer sandals and didn't have to spend a dime), some scarves and two tops.
For me: An Eiffel Tower decoration (what a lucky find for a Francophile!), a beautiful Irish wool sweater and matching scarf for winter, several tops, two handbags (I looked up one that said they retail for $1100, but I'm unclear if it's a copy), a beach towel, a blue throw blanket for our bedroom, brown suede boots, and more.
For my sister: A whole new summer wardrobe. I loved how she put it, "Who needs to shop when I have you?!"
My seasonal clothing swap: various sports shirts, Seven brand jeans, bags, other clothes. I co-organize four swaps a year at work, and much of what I brought was scooped up, the rest donated to one of our charities, including Housing Works Thrift Shops which helps out HIV positive and homeless New Yorkers.
Charity shops: The majority of it went to the Goodwill in Paramus, New Jersey, since they could handle the volume and it was convenient to drop-off, but some also went to CATS Resale Shop in Emerson, NJ and Cinema Verite in New York City.

Steve thought I was nuts, but I washed everything we found (except for some items that had tags on it, which gives them a higher resale value). I didn't know where it was stored or if it was clean, so in good faith all my clothing donations were freshly laundered. You don't want to go into the landfill Elmo, do you? No way, let's go to the Goodwill!

I felt bad for the woman. She was going through a divorce and had to move in a hurry. I think people don't declutter and this is what happens - they get overwhelmed and have to discard when moving. I spent a lot of time and energy on these items since I was distributing them to various places and people, but I can't believe there wasn't an hour in the day on the owner's part to run this stuff over to the Goodwill. Thousands of dollars spent, dozens of hours shopping, and then, I don't have an hour or two in my day? I'm really saddened that people are slaving away in other countries to feed the American appetite for cheap fashion and things go so readily into the landfill, some never even worn.

I don't understand all these little girls clutching logo bags (fake and real) around in one hand and their phone in the other. I don't even like logo bags for women. As for companies like Coach declaring their products are "handcrafted in China" I declare I will never give you a dime of my hard-earned money for your false status symbol bags you are conning American women and girls to buy. Katy Perry might be maxing out her credit cards in her song Last Friday Night, but I don't march in that army, and I don't have her bank account. What message our we sending about money when we are done using our latest trendy whatever, we throw it out when someone else could have gotten it for free at a clothing swap or from freecycle, or some great charities could have benefited.

It was a lot of work, but it was worth seeing my donations for sale at the Goodwill. These shoes were not my size or style (too bad they weren't 7 1/2 size ballet flat fans), but these were priced for $15 at Goodwill. Instead of the landfill, this shoe is giving an American a wage and keeping demand down for one more new pair of foreign made shoes.

Certain brand names always draw strong interest, but when I look at these Seven jeans, I just see another "Made in China" label and a clothing manufacturer charging a premium to the consumer.

There was a Dateline NBC piece recently about Americans who were now out of work and struggling financially, some having to go to food banks. Like anyone in hard times, cut backs were needed, but I found some of the items mentioned in the piece hard to swallow as struggling like cutting cable, eating meals at home and shopping at thrift shops. Each could warrant it's own blog post, but for our topic here, I'm tired of the media associated thrift shopping, like acts like hang drying laundry, as, "Oh, that's what poor people do." I don't understand the snobbery against second hand goods. There's a line in the Sonny and Cher song, "Baby Please Don't Go" where Cher sings in the character of a young struggling woman, "I never had no money. I shopped at the secondhand store." I shop at the secondhand store, and always will even though I have the means to shops at traditional stores. If people don't like my lifestyle, I'll compare credit card debt notes. I have none.

WalMart is running ads about their low-price guarantee. Why is it okay that we brag about low prices on some items (never mind no questions asked about how our food, clothes and other items are produced), but there's shame associated with getting something at a swap or from the Goodwill? Steve and I attend a black tie dinner each year with his chef's group, and this year I was thrilled to find a vintage dress at an estate sale for about $10. I got so many compliments that evening and he kept saying don't tell them where it's from, but I'm proud of who I am. I didn't go to Nordstrom and spend $200 for some Chinese made dress. I recycled and I got a huge savings.

Retail therapy, America needs it for sure. Just not what the traditional retailers want.

I always think back on the free shelf I saw in Telluride, Colorado. Why can't we have this in every community?

Steve and I ponder this issue often and how we can make a difference. I do the swaps, I buy the vast majority of our clothes and household items second hand, we rescue things from the trash. We're not registering for our wedding so I can rip open overpriced foreign made goods in front of my friends and family when I'm getting things for a dime at garage sales and recycling in the process. But we want to do more. I'm sharing this post with you in hopes that some seed will be planted somewhere.

I tried to plant a seed with the woman throwing it out. She came up with excuses about hearing the Goodwill or other places shreds things for rags. Even if they do that with a minority of items, at least it's being reused. I just wore at our Independence Day bbq a cute Old Navy summer dress from the Goodwill I paid about $6.50 for. I assure you that wasn't shredded for rags, and I'm so glad its previous owner took the time to drop it off. When I don't want it anymore, I'll give it, not throw it, away. When I mentioned what a shame it was so much was made in China and other countries, she said there's no way around it. This consumer respectfully disagrees. This isn't about being perfect and making ideal choices all the time, but I largely don't give these companies my money. Yes, sometimes I do, but mostly I swap. I rescue from the curb. I thrift shop or go to garage sales. I vote using (and not using) my dollar.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section about the epidemic of waste going into American landfills, and how we can solve it.

Resources:
Find a charity shop near you at the TheThriftShopper.com.
Find a Freecycle. group near you
Shop estate sales (where the entire contents of a house are for sale). Find one near you.

Clothes: Free. Guilt: None. Better Fashion Culture: Wanted.

One jade green Ann Taylor Loft top, made in China, one Anna Belen headband with yellow flower, and one Alba Hawaiian jasmine-scented moisturizer, $0.

One Banana Republic Italian wool sweater, made in Hong Kong, and scarf, country of origin and brand unknown, $0.

One Reflections Images of You silk houndstooth blouse, made in China, and black cashmere-silk Jones New York sweater vest, made in China, $0. Kind of Mad Men-ish, right? When I wore it a woman told me I looked "retro-y."

One cashmere Garnet Hill raspberry colored sweater, made in China, $0.

The feeling I get knowing that I haven't given any of my money to corporations using cheap foreign labor, kept things out of the landfill, and am empowering myself and others financially: priceless.

I co-hosted my seasonal clothing swap recently at work during our lunch hour, and for winter we've been including unwanted holiday gifts. I highly recommend it for frugal fun when everyone's bills are arriving in January, and we donate the leftovers to local charitable thrift shops.

I did spend some money on refreshments (ours were all Trader Joe's fare: guacamole, pineapple salsa, maple cookies, clementines, etc.) Some swaps have rules, but ours is very casual: give and take what you like.

As for the stigma against secondhand clothes, I'll never understand it. If people want to spend $90 at Banana Republic for a Chinese made sweater, go ahead.

Like hang drying laundry or park cleanups, clothing swaps (or any kind of swaps) are a grassroots thing. They just need one person to say, hey, let's hold a swap! Maybe that person is you! Have you ever attended a swap, or would like to organize one? I'm talking to more and more parents who are swapping baby's and children's toys, clothes and furniture.

A 1950s dress at The Family Jewels Vintage Shop in New York City, from an era of great style.

An observation on clothes today: I regularly visit thrift shops and attend estate sales as a hobby, and come across clothing spanning many decades. I have a lot of items with the union label on it (like Francie's father in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I wear it proudly, like a rose). Aside from the fact they've shifted 90 percent being made here to 90 percent now abroad, the quality, like many things, leaves a lot to be desired. So much of this cheap fashion is disposable.

I love clothes and fashion. I get almost all of it now through swaps, thrift shops and estate sales. I wish I could make my own clothes (still on my life 'to do' list). Maybe since I've time traveled so much through films and television shows, but also through old photo albums and what's offered at estate sales, I look at the style now and don't think there's much of one. I wish fashion would be more inspired and creative than UGG boots and Chinese made logo bags (if someone can explain the appeal of a bag with MK all over it, please do so). I think part of the draw of these bags is they are a safe accessory since almost every woman I know has body insecurity issues. I do too, that nagging voice is often there, wouldn't you look better if you lost a few pounds?

I look at photos of my grandmother and even at the end of her life she was dressed to the nines. Nice jewelry, her good perfume (Chanel), gloves, a handbag. Her generation wouldn't be caught dead wearing pink fuzzy pajama pants with Tweety bird on them in public (spotted at a Hackensack, New Jersey Barnes and Noble, but really I see this everywhere now and it's totally inappropriate). I was at Housing Works trift shop and picked up a pink Anne Klein suit the other day for $23 because I realized I didn't have one in my entire wardrobe. No special occasion like an interview. I just felt it was a welcome addition to a wardrobe of a 36-year-old woman. I'm proud of my age, I don't want to dress like a teenager or obsess over lost youth.

Maybe we don't have any great fashion role models today. Who were and are yours? In addition to the women in my family, I remember watching I Love Lucy reruns as a child and loving Lucy's cute hats and gloves, nice dress suits, black ballet flats. I cannot wait for Mad Men to come back on the air in large part for the fashion. During awards season, I'm always looking for Michelle Williams on the red carpet. In My Week With Marilyn, she showed as Marilyn how alluring a woman can look in just a white blouse and beige pencil skirt.

I definitely think women should start questioning more. Where is this made? How is this made? Is it a "good" bag or other item just because the retailer is charging $200 for it? What makes certain things so coveted? Since we've stopped questioning, all those manufacturing jobs slipped overseas, and fashion seems really boring and way too casual. Jeans are now too dressy or too much work to put on? There's some loss of civility in our "living room" culture (where to me so many act and dress like they are in their living rooms and not in public).

What are your thoughts on fashion in 2012 in America?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Clothing

It started as a casual conversation with my coworker in the next cubicle of having too many clothes, and hey, we should have a clothing swap. The seed was planted, and it grew into action (make your ideas become action too!) The first day of summer, June 21st, we held our tenth seasonal clothing and accessories swap. Our winter one in January includes unwanted holiday gifts. My good friend Kristin who pens Wordfall is a fellow organizer.

We do these on our lunch hour and offer light refreshments: lemonade, roasted red pepper hummus with multi grain pita chips and organic cucumbers, strawberries and kettle corn. We also had cherry tomatoes, peaches, and mini campfire s'mores, and vegan cinnamon Cafe Twist cookies. Produce from New Jersey farms, the rest from Trader Joe's.

In the back are books, accessories and beauty products so all sizes could find something. I often hear, "You wouldn't want my things," but we really do! We donate leftovers and all sizes can benefit from secondhand clothes. We get so many small sizes that many people "shop" for their teenage daughters.

A small sampling of what we had. My sister gave me the zebra print bag to contribute. It was brand new but she decided she didn't want it. Someone took it. No takers for the blue broomstick skirt I brought. I would have kept it, but the elastic around the waste was too uncomfortable for me, so I donated it.

We include swimwear. I'm not skeevish about secondhand swimwear. I have two bathing suits both from CATS Resale Shop which I paid about $3 or $4 each for. I'm skeevish about retail pricing on bathing suits, and know from my mother who worked retail about the legions of women have tried those on in dressing rooms and knows how many end up on the floor of fitting rooms.

Here were my finds. I'm including country of origin, because I want to draw awareness to where our clothes are made (see my Origins of an American Closet post). If you're getting something second hand, you don't have to feel guilty contributing to the demand for new resources and questionable labor conditions.

A yellow m/m cardigan (made in China), four scarves (one is Jones New York, the rest are unlabeled, all with no country of origin), and a Body Shop cassis rose lotion (made in the UK).

Raspberry colored shoes perfect for the pool or beach. I would never shop for shoes like this on my own, but am happy to have gotten them. The black Ann Taylor Loft flip flops were donated from a woman who said they were the wrong size, were on the bottom of her closet never worn. Precisely why we hold these swaps! Both have no country of origin.

We donate the leftovers to charitable thrift shops: Housing Works, which benefits low income and homeless New Yorkers living with HIV, and C.A.T.S. Resale Shop in Westwood, New Jersey, which serves as a shop and shelter for homeless cats (they foster some dogs too), and money raised helps pay for veterinary bills and food. I love the idea of unwanted clothes and other items finding a new home, and helping homeless people and animals.

At the C.A.T.S. Resale Shop, I picked up this Old Navy lemon top, $2, made in China, and Jordache top, $2, made in Sri Lanka. I'll be the first to admit that if you gave me a map, I could not find Sri Lanka on it, yet someone there toiled to make this shirt for an American. Luckily that American donated it when it was unwanted so another American could wear it: me.

I love these cotton tops in the summer, which I pair with long flowy skirts and, now, wear the scarves I got at the swap in my head.

I've come across clothes in the garbage often (on the eve of the swap, I found 7 pairs of jeans, two tops, including one Banana Republic and four fleeces peering out of a garbage bin (not in bags), mostly made in China. This is disrespectful to the people who labored to make these clothes, to the planet (our landfills are full enough) and to the people who could benefit getting these clothes for free or a significantly reduced cost.

I get all my clothes second hand now, and if people want to put me down, I don't care. I have an increasing retirement and savings account, no debt, have traveled to Paris, Mexico, Spain, Morocco and more and paid for those trips outright, and it's not because I make an enormous salary. If someone wants to feel superior for paying $90 for something I spent $4 on, I let them!

As for stigma and brand obsessions, I point to the I Love Lucy episode that takes place in Paris. Lucy and Ethel long for dresses by fictional designer Jacques Marcel. Lucy stages a fake hunger strike in her hotel room (of course Ethel sneaks in food), and Ricky caves and agrees to buy a dress. When he finds out they were cheating, he gets a tailor to make dresses out of potato sacks and a horse's feed sack and put in a Jacques Marcel label. Fred goes in on it too. Thinking they are the real deal, Lucy and Ethel proudly stroll along the boulevard, but are horrified when they are told the truth. Jacques Marcel was at a cafe watching, loved the look, and copied them. Lucy and Ethel instantly regret burning their Jacques Marcel "originals." It's all about psychology!

I keep hearing about what lean economic times we are in, but everywhere I look I see women of modest means with expensive designer bags and clothes. My sister and I ponder, do people really like the bag because of the look of it, or it's because of the label? Personally, I wouldn't carry one of those high end designer bags if given one for free. I don't know why women feel the need to live the lifestyle of celebrities, and we should all be saving for rainy days (are these women saving?)

I used to think I was "treating myself" to Anthropologie clothes but now think it was a waste of money. Someone asked me recently, "Do you shop at Anthropologie?" and I said, "No but I wear their clothes." (like my $4 thrift skirt). I'd rather show off organic strawberries and thrifty used finds than a $300 bag. I'm more worried about what goes in my body, not what decorates it.

Our grandmothers made it through the depression and war years and acquired thrifty skills they kept for life, yet I don't know how much we've learned as a nation amid the Great Recession. I'm impressed by savings, resourcefulness, recycling, caring about workers' conditions, animals, and the planet. I'm never impressed when someone tells me they have an enormous shoe or bag collection. That's from an animal's sacrifice, from a worker's toil, from the Earth's limited resources. To me, that's greedy. I'm not envious of a Louis Vuitton bag. That's just a status symbol.

As for "trends" the "in" look thrust on American women by unknown forces each season, I reject that thinking, and encourage other women to. Who wants to look like everyone else? It's just an excuse for retailers to get you in stores. I don't need a woman in Indonesia working in a factory so I can look "in." I'd rather see her bent over a book. My sister said every time Kate Middleton wears something, it sells out. Why don't we work on developing our own sense of style?

Find a thrift shop for charity near you through ThriftShopper.com. Consider hosting a clothing swap with your friends or coworkers, or donate your goods to a charity, pass them on through freecycle, or even sell them. Keep the reduce, reuse, recycle thread going.

Check out Angela Barton's Thrift Threads column where readers show off their cute secondhand wears, and The Thrifty Chicks, who advocate for a robust reuse market (as do I!) I think every American town and city should offer a freecycle space for residents to keep things out of landfills and give residents a chance to save money getting things for free.

Have you ever attended a swap? Enjoy thrift or consignment shopping? Scoring thrifty threads at garage sales or on eBay? Swap maternity wear or kids clothing with family members or friends? Do you look at the labels of where your clothes are made and wonder about the conditions they were made in?