Don’t throw out textiles!
Most clothing items can be reused. Even those that cannot find a second (or third) life in a thrift store can be turned into other objects. The important thing is to keep them out of the landfill!
Metro Vancouver has launched a “Think Thrice About Your Clothes” campaign. This is aimed at significantly reducing the enormous quantities of textiles that end up in area landfillls.
About 10% of solid waste in the landfills is made up of textiles and experts estimate that as much as 95% of that could be used or recycled instead.
Metro Vancouver Regional District reports that area residents discard 20,000 tons of textiles into the landfill annually – that’s the equivalent of 44 T-shirts for every adult and child in the region!
Not only does this put pressure on our landfills, with the resulting impacts on the environment, but the more months or years we can add to the life of a garment, the smaller the environmental footprint of the item. Consider this: The creation of a single T-shirt consumes 700 gallons of water. That’s one single, simple T-shirt. Extrapolate that across your closet! (More shocking stats here!)
Most people have no idea that even the most damaged, stained or otherwise seemingly unusable clothing can be turned into something useful. Sometimes, it is simply cleaning rags but companies right here in Metro Vancouver are doing a bang-up job of turning discarded items into an array of products.
This is a major step forward in the reduce/reuse/recycle system!
However, most of us discard clothing before it reaches a state of complete uselessness! We grow tired of the colour or we outgrow it (!) or the collar gets a little frayed. What is old and tired to one of us is fresh and cool to a savvy shopper at the RAPS Thrift Stores!
Over the decades, RAPS Thrift Stores have kept incalculable tons of material out of the landfills. Better still: We have provided quality, new-to-you clothing, housewares, books, collectibles and all sorts of treasures to people of every income level – and 100% of the revenues help RAPS save and improve the lives of animals! Talk about a win-win-win!
It’s almost springtime (it can’t come soon enough, if you ask us!), so when you are cleaning out your closets or refreshing your wardrobe, take the time to separate your items for donation to RAPS and items that are not resalable, which can then be dropped off at a Metro Vancouver recycling Centre. Always keep in mind that the ideal is to reduce to zero that amount of materials we send to the dump!
Plus … if you are looking to freshen your wardrobe at insanely low prices, you know where to go!
Metro Vancouver Regional District reports that area residents discard 20,000 tons of textiles into the landfill annually – that’s the equivalent of 44 T-shirts for every adult and child in the region! Extrapolate that across your closet – and read on to see how you can help the environment AND the animals.
Photos by Sara Dane Photography.
