GreenYour.com

Whether your motivation stems from the simple thrill of finding a bargain or from fashion-driven philanthropy, choosing used T-shirts lets you participate in the most eco-friendly type of shopping—buying recycled clothes.

How to choose used T-shirts

• Pick a charity. Organizations such as the secular Goodwill and Christian-based Salvation Army operate ubiquitous thrift stores that generate a large part of their inventory from donations and direct revenues to charitable causes, such as career training for the disadvantaged and disaster relief. If there's a charity or cause you're interested in supporting, investigate to see if an affiliated thrift store exists and start there.

• Buy, sell, trade. For-profit consignment stores and vintage/designer clothing resale shops that function on a buy/sell/trade basis are goldmines for scoring desirable secondhand T-shirts. It's more likely that T-shirts sold at these stores are of higher quality than those found at run-of-the-mill thrift stores. That's because for-profit consignment and designer resale shops are typically selective and employ fashion buyers to choose between the good, the bad, and the ugly. The rejects from these stores are generally given to charity.

• Make a plan of attack, keep your options open, and don't get frustrated. Vintage and used clothing shopping—especially when you're after the ultimate in kitschy sports team ringers or a finely weathered rock concert T-shirt—is often based on pure dumb luck. If that perfectly fitting, faded, just-right Mickey Mouse shirt from the mid-70s eludes you, don't give up the hunt. Our picks are examples of both charitable and for-profit stores that are good places to start a search. If they don't yield results, keep trying. The thrill of the chase and the eventual capture is part of vintage shopping's inherent appeal.

• Look elsewhere. If a musty thrift store doesn't appeal to you, there are other options: Garage and yard sales, auctions, flea markets, rummage sales, and clothing swaps are all potential jackpots. Often the best finds are hiding in the most unlikely places—you never know what 100 percent cotton diamonds-in-the-rough you'll stumble upon at the rummage sale sponsored by your great aunt's retirement home.

• Don't give in to the new-but-used-looking T-shirt trend. If your search for the ideal vintage T-shirt is unfruitful, don't succumb to the faux-vintage T-shirt market. Realizing that true retro T-shirts are becoming scarce and that many shoppers are squeamish when it comes to sifting through racks at secondhand stores or wearing someone's old clothes, many clothing labels and retailers make T-shirts that are based on old graphics and designs—often pre-faded or even complete with prefab holes and tears. Unless it's made from organic cotton or another eco-friendly fiber, there are no environmental benefits to buying a T-shirt that looks like it was purchased in Mexico City in 1985.

• Use common sense. Don't buy 600 T-shirts you'll never wear just because they cost $2. Check for tears, holes, stains, or other damage before you buy. Wash the clothing after you purchase it. And to make your thrift experience completely eco-friendly, bring your own shopping bag.

• For additional guidance on the art of shopping secondhand, The Sideroad offers helpful tips.

Find it! Used clothing shops and thrift stores

Find it! Thrift and resale store resources

Check out these excellent resources when seeking a local charity-driven thrift or clothing resale store.

• National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops
• Resale Network
• The Thrift Shopper
• Thrifty Planet Resource Guide

Choosing used T-shirts helps you go green because…

• When you buy new clothing, sustainable or not, there will be some attached environmental impact, whether it comes from the transport of bamboo fiber from China to a manufacturer in Canada or from the pesticide-heavy treatment of conventional cotton. By purchasing a used T-shirt or other article of clothing there are few, if any, environmental repercussions.
• When you buy used clothing it's no longer in a state of recycling limbo. Your purchase is the only fool-proof way to ensure that it doesn't eventually enter a landfill.
• When you purchase an article of clothing from a thrift shop operated by a charitable organization, you are contributing directly to a social cause, sometimes even an environmental one. Many for-profit thrift stores are also associated with altruistic groups and causes.

The detrimental environmental impact of T-shirts is rooted in the farming of conventional cotton, considered the world's most pesticide-intensive crop. While only 2.4 percent of farmland worldwide is dedicated to cotton, it accounts for 24 percent of global insecticide sales and 11 percent of global pesticide sales.[1] In the United States, an estimated one-third pound of agricultural chemicals is used to produce a single cotton T-shirt. Thus, a 100 percent cotton T-shirt is actually comprised of 73 percent cotton—the remaining 27 percent is made up of chemicals and chemical residues.[1][2] The farming of conventional cotton is also water-intensive. Approximately 400 gallons of water are required to produce a single cotton T-shirt.[3] When you buy a used T-shirt in lieu of a new one, you are playing a small but important role in halting this process.

Additionally, each year nearly 9 billion pounds of textiles and clothing enter the public waste stream and are sent to landfills.[4] An estimated 10.6 million tons of textiles were generated in 2003, with the average American discarding about 68 pounds of clothing and textiles per year—85 percent of which ends up in landfills.[5] The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has shown that even state-of-the-art landfills, those with the latest technology for liners and operating methods, will eventually leak, releasing potentially hazardous chemicals from discarded items into the groundwater.[6] Choosing used T-shirts can help cut back on the amount of textile waste that goes to landfills.

Donating also saves the clothing from being incinerated. The incineration process releases different chemicals into the environment depending on the material of the garment.

External Links

• Style Will Save Us
• Gridskipper - NYC Thrift Shops
• Time.com - The New Trend of Used
• Ideal Bite - Can 80's clothes really be considered vintage?