Innovations in online shopping have made it easier than ever to buy a new dress for your best friend’s wedding or grab a crisp white t-shirt the second your current one starts to fade. With the click of a button, people with means can have new clothes immediately — all without ever stepping foot inside of a brick-and-mortar store. The result makes sense: Because shopping has never been easier, people are shopping more — even if their needs remain the same.
But Oxfam, an international group working to end poverty, wants you and your fellow consumers to (deep breath!) curb your shopping habit for the month of September. The group launched Second-Hand September, an initiative that encourages people to not buy any brand new products for 30 days.
Your bank account won’t be the only thing thanking you — the planet will, too. Especially if you tend to partake in fast fashion.
Believe it or not, the fashion industry is one of the leading contributors to the growing climate crisis. As a polluter, it’s the second most egregious next to oil, Forbes reported. The industry emits 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gas annually, creates nearly 20% of the world’s wastewater and America alone sends over 10 million tons of textiles to landfills each year. That’s in large part due to fast fashion, the trend of making clothes cheaply and readily available as the market changes. The trend isn’t only bad for the environment — it is bad for labor, too. Perhaps because of fast fashion’s emphasis on speed at a bargain, labor conditions for workers often aren’t safe. On top of that, many factory workers are working long hours and at unlivable wages.
And it’s a trend that’s growing. According to The University of Queensland, the world consumes 80 billion new clothing pieces ever year, which has skyrocketed 400% in the last 20 years.
“The damage of fast fashion is far-reaching – from extensive use of water in production to poor pay and conditions for workers,” Fee Gilfeather, head of audience and strategic planning at Oxfam, told Retail Gazette.
So skip the brand-new, low-quality clothing and opt-in for thrift store looks. Vintage and thrift stores are home to affordable, quality clothing. Plus, it’s a great way to support local businesses.
If you don’t have access to thrift stores, try shopping resale online at stores like Etsy, eBay or Poshmark. There are also organizations out there ready to change the industry. If you have a toddler or baby, UpChoose is a place to start. Since children grow so fast, a lot of their clothing is only used for a short amount of time. UpChoose allows you to buy clothing and exchange them later for bigger sizes as your child grows.
And if you’re itching for something new, look at sustainable retailers like Everlane, ADAY or AmourVert, which sell quality, ethical and sustainable clothing that will last.
It’s not easy to shift your mindset and actions, but as we look for ways to combat our climate crisis, a simple change, like where you buy your clothing, adds up.
Second-Hand September has a nice alliterative ring to it, but that doesn’t mean the challenge has to last just this month. Since we’re nearly halfway through September, challenge yourself for the rest of the year. What if you could do it for all of 2020?
More: The Sneaker Saint
Tag: online shopping
The New Website That Encourages You to Buy Local
When most of us think of online shopping, Amazon, Ebay and other big name shopping sites immediately come to mind. With a wide audience and cheap prices, these websites are popular and sell just about everything — except for local, handmade and artisan products. For those items, you probably tend to head to local boutiques or farmers’ markets.
But now, thanks to the new site MadeClose, you can buy these types of items from the comfort of your own home.
Launched six months ago, this Brooklyn-based e-commerce site specializes in eco-conscious products. What makes the company stand out though is how it organizes its site. Focusing on location, all of its products are arranged according to where they’re manufactured. Customers can search for their desired product on a browseable map on the site.
Overall, the company’s goal is to connect small-scale American manufacturers with consumers all over the country, allowing the companies to grow and expand.
Vendors don’t have to pay to join MadeClose, but the site does receive a commission on all sales.
At the heart of the company’s values is transparency. All vendors are required to display what percentage of a product’s materials are made in the U.S., how many employees they have and the product’s key ingredients and materials. In addition, the merchants have the option to include information on where the materials they use are sourced and their values.
Through this policy, customers will know exactly what they’re buying and where it comes from — making them a more active participant in the manufacturing process.
Right now, MadeClose has 600 merchants on its site. And while most are concentrated in Brooklyn, there are sellers from Los Angeles to North Carolina and include a reclaimed wood skateboard manufacturer, a tomato and cheddar biscotti baker, a Massachusetts-based booze-infused jam maker and a leather goods manufacturer.
And even though it’s not that environmentally friendly to ship a product cross-country, that isn’t a deterrent for the site. Instead, it focuses on how these local businesses are usually more community-based since they use local materials and reinvest in the community.
One such company is Ampersand in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ninety-five percent of the materials used by this furniture and home goods product design company comes from the Cincinnati area. And since joining MadeClose about a month ago, the company has expanded beyond its borders with all of its sales being to places outside of its home state.
But with any new site, there’s always critics, which claim that local products are expensive, elitist and only for those with “precious tastes.”
However, according to co-founder and CEO Peter Smith, those stereotypes are exactly what MadeClose is trying to dispel.
“Part of the reason that we started the site was to kind of pull back the veil on a lot of noise out there,” Smith told Next City. “What about the fact that if you buy from a local shop, they circulate a lot more money in their own community than a big business chain? I can understand how someone might think that the price points of artisanal goods are exclusionary, but a lot of time, they are better made and longer-lasting.”
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