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What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

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Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#91

Post by kipchak »

mgkimsal wrote: post #88
kipchak wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... […

7x? I probably have too many clothes - we cull some every year or so, but my wife gets me a couple new things so it almost evens out. But probably half of what I wear in rotation is at least 3-4 years old, and some items closer to 10. I have a few items from 20 years ago, but I don't fit those so well any more (but keep for sentimental issues). That 'rotation' means I wear most of these shirts and pants 20-30x per ye…

I feel the same way, I think the shirt I have on is probably 5 years old. It doesn't help that "fast fashion" garments are generally lower quality and wears worse than alternatives, but a fair number of people are just done with an outfit after being seen in it a couple times.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#92

Post by mikkergp »

gidorah wrote: post #80
gtk40 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is often doing outdoor activities and sports in a very hot, humid area I can't find a good alternative to plastics for clothing. But they last a long time. I have a lot of synthetic workout clothing well over a decade old. I guess not nearly as long as you. :)

Merino wool is great for this.

I think a lot of people find Merino wool not to have the same itchy discomfort of traditional wool, I am sadly not one of those people.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#93

Post by mikkergp »

rglover wrote: post #24

A bit of a tangent, but... I'm actually quite excited by the implications of the changing economic outlook for the world. Companies are finally catching up with the reality that infinite growth and unending production are not sustainable business models (and a great way to kill your brand via diminishing returns). We might actually get to see a return to quality thinking (in the Juran/Deming sense) where things are a…

This is very optimistic, I like the cut of your jib.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#94

Post by amelius »

acomjean wrote: post #35
racl101 wrote: post #16

As a guy who has always worn hand-me-downs in child hood and teenage years I wear my clothes out until they are no longer wearable. So I just convert them into rags or toss them in the trash once they have too many tears.

On a construction site I was working on, the box of "recycled rags" was just old t-shirts cut up. they're still doing it: https://nowlinens.com/collections/tshirt-rags/products/pro-c...

There's only one written review and it says:

> I ordered white tee shirt rags and that was probably the only thing that wasn't in the bag. It had sweatshirts shirts with collars just mostly trash I could have picked up at a yard sale for a couple bucks .

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#96

Post by amelius »

rglover wrote: post #24

A bit of a tangent, but... I'm actually quite excited by the implications of the changing economic outlook for the world. Companies are finally catching up with the reality that infinite growth and unending production are not sustainable business models (and a great way to kill your brand via diminishing returns). We might actually get to see a return to quality thinking (in the Juran/Deming sense) where things are a…

Yes, let's hope capitalism will autocorrect itself.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#97

Post by thepuppet33r »

Syonyk wrote: post #47
CPLX wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may come as a shock as I admit the extent of it surprised me as well, but the speed with which children change size soundly outstrips the lifetime of the average piece of clothing. And I’ve heard rumors that adults change size quite a bit as well. Sometimes they move from one place to another too.

> ...but the speed with which children change size soundly outstrips the lifetime of the average piece of clothing. So you swap clothing around to other parents who have younger kids, in exchange from clothing from people with older kids? There's a very solid ecosystem of clothing/shoes/etc moving around our church, and it's quite common to see someone wearing clothes that our kids used to wear, or seeing our kids we…

We tried this, and even tried the whole cloth diapers thing, too. My daughter outgrew her cloth diapers in less than a year. We moved to a new place when she was one and we still don't know enough people to be able to do this sort of swap. Our neighbors have girls near her age, but they just moved here, too, and did a big purge back where they came from.

It's easy to talk about swapping clothes when you have a large community, but if you're new to a place and don't have those connections, you're stuck with goodwill (which has very few toddler clothes where we are) or the big box stores.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#98

Post by mandevil »

trgn wrote: post #37
pwinnski wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree on reducing! Still, are you suggesting that clothes should be kept forever? Because whether you're talking about someone who discards entire wardrobes at the end of every season, or someone who rotates the same very-few items until they no longer fit, at some point people still need to do something with old clothes.

> Still, are you suggesting that clothes should be kept forever? Fair point! > Because whether you're talking about someone who discards entire wardrobes at the end of every season I would assume these people buy high-end garments, and you'll find more boutique second hand stores that will take it. I suspect, if somebody is that devoted to fashion, it's more of a hobby or a passion, and I think we're all allowed a fe…

If you RtFA, you would see that she considers resellers, and points out that most clothes that are fashionable- especially for women, who are always judged more harshly in this sort of situation- don't hold up to wear and washing very well. One of the categories is specifically described as "ultra-cheap items that obviously wouldn’t survive machine washing but that would cost more to dry-clean than they did to buy." She also considers the larger point that "the resale economy, too, has boomed, and you can find new buyers for your old clothes on a slew of resale websites and apps, including eBay, Poshmark, Depop, and Facebook Marketplace." Reselling, however, well, falls into exactly the same consumerist trap that you started out proclaiming was the problem: "But the bigger issue, Le Zotte and Bédat both cautioned, is that resale apps and services aren’t really a bulwark against overconsumption, even though they feel that way (and even though they’re often marketed as such). Buying secondhand is definitely preferable to buying and discarding brand-new stuff, but if you’re constantly cycling through clothes and chasing trends, then you’re still just as much caught in the teeth of the fashion system as the rest of us."

The lesson that I took from this article is that being a male computer engineer[1], and thus having social approval to look however the hell I want, is a great perk that I do not explicitly value enough. In fact, it is because I don't have to think about what I wear- I literally have a rotation of shirts and pants/shorts and just pick whatever is next in each category- that the perk is so large and I undervalue it so much.

[1]: It helps that I fit into essentially every dominant caste category for my local region, I suspect, but my sample sizes are small enough here that I won't comment about that. My sample sizes on female computer engineers is large enough that I feel comfortable saying that they are held to higher standards of dress than I am.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#99

Post by klondike_klive »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #90
dieselgate wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> We can use old electronics as a paper weight (“and more!”) if we want to but people don’t normally promote that. 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.

My 4-yr old kid calls them "broken-down t-shirts" - very useful to have a bag of them in the kitchen and bathroom for spills and messes. Before I was always torn between wasting a dishcloth or using a load of paper kitchen towel which might disintegrate.
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