81–90 of 181 posts
I'm willing to spend, say, 5 or 10x what one would at Uniqlo or Old Navy to buy quality garments that will last a long time and be socially acceptable in upper middle class west coast cliques—i.e., I don't need tailored suits in my world. Where do I go?
Buy Uniqlo and save 80% of your budget.
All the countries I've lived in during my life (4) have had various types of "boxes" on the street where you can dump clothes, which subsequently gets donated to various organizations that handles giving clothes to people in need. Since I've found this in every country I've lived, I thought this was ubiquitous in the modern world. Am I maybe blinded by my experience here?
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getting taller, getting fatter, skinnier, needing special clothing due to injury or pregnancy, etc...
Clothes ripping by accident, food or drink spilling on them and staining them, and so on...
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> And at some later point, I have to dispose of them. I somewhat disagree. You do have to get your clothes, but what is about the disposing of perfectly fine clothes that's necessary? It's only because we have too many of them. Wear the clothes until they're worn. Use the rags.
None of my clothes are perfectly fine unless I've hardly ever worn them. The disposal of unworn clothes is probably a result of the fast fashion industry. But other than that clothes still get worn out and need to get replaced. I wish I could repair and recolor all my clothes to make them look decent again, but I just can't.
I wear old clothes when doing yard work or woodworking or metalworking --- by the time I'm done, they're only suited to be cut up for rags, and I have a jar which I clip the buttons into --- if a zipper is YKK and still in good condition I'll cut around it in case I need to replace a zipper on something. I've tried to convince my wife to take up quilting, but she has zero interest, and I don't have the time.
> There is simply no easy, universal guidance for the most Earth-friendly or hassle-free or socially good way for you to dispose of your old clothes But there is. In fact, the answer is right in the setup of the article. > For much of American history [...] most of the population considered the endless accumulation of material goods unseemly, Basically, don't buy so many clothes to begin with. And then you don't have…
Unfortunately I'm not allowed to walk around naked, so I am forced to purchase clothes at some point. And at some later point, I have to dispose of them. Your comment doesn't seem to address that, and it's pretty fundamental to the question, I think.
Presumably natural fibers (wool, cotton, hemp etc) can be composted (conveniently ignoring buttons etc) and everything synthetic can just be landfilled (what else can we do with plasitcs).
Im a bit of a cynic but it’s acceptable to “dispose of” items. Hopefully we can keep in mind reduce, reuse, and recycle but there’s a functional limit to those things.
It seems likely any “trash handling technology” to arise to settle this has bigger fish to fry than just clothing - if any “plastic eating microbe” was employed commercially it makes more sense to me to stick it on the landfills rather than an old laundry basket
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Unfortunately I'm not allowed to walk around naked, so I am forced to purchase clothes at some point. And at some later point, I have to dispose of them. Your comment doesn't seem to address that, and it's pretty fundamental to the question, I think.
It's worth noting that you and I are probably wear more times than the average amount. For example I've seen numbers like the average garment is worn on average seven times[1], and garments being considered "old" if they're worn twice.[2] Even if these numbers are exaggerated it's still much lower than typical use and waste compared to the average. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ghana-fast-fashion-environmenta... […
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Unfortunately I'm not allowed to walk around naked, so I am forced to purchase clothes at some point. And at some later point, I have to dispose of them. Your comment doesn't seem to address that, and it's pretty fundamental to the question, I think.
It’s funny seeing so many people promote “use them as rags!”! Sure that’s possible but it’s not an absolute. We can use old electronics as a paper weight (“and more!”) if we want to but people don’t normally promote that. Presumably natural fibers (wool, cotton, hemp etc) can be composted (conveniently ignoring buttons etc) and everything synthetic can just be landfilled (what else can we do with plasitcs). Im a bit…
The reason for this is that people don't usually buy paperweights that are indistinguishable from, say, an old and discarded mobile phone.
They do, on the other hand, often buy things like hand towels or dish rags that are indistinguishable from home-made ones that are just old clothes torn up.