Welcome back to grinning Atlantic, the podcast where we dash all your hopes and dreams. Being an eco friendly member of society, Titan get well I you know, I think reading up my act is a podcast about nuance and learning and how there's no such thing as a perfect solution but we're trying to arm our friends and ourselves with information about making the best choices that we can to care about the environment and our pocketbooks and doing things effectively in our lives. So yes, yes. And yeah, using things that actually function and work and yeah, are not just a big headache. Yeah. Like DIY dishwasher detergent. Yes. Which if you haven't listened to that episode if you if you want to hear our first soggy granola, that's what it is. Yeah, but we did it. We have had some winners this season too. Because we're talking about wastes This is Season Two of greening up my act and we've we had some My Little Ponies instead of four horsemen of the apocalypse so yeah, glass or rest gonna Mercer Yeah, paper recycling. Those are all relatively functional things. Surprisingly functional. I think we kind of went in thinking that they were going to be death cults on the only one that is a death cult is plastic. So it isn't partisan is yeah. So yeah. So yeah, we are to marketing writers and we love to explore products that market themselves as green or eco friendly. And we love to just find the green Hui and all the nonsense, because we kind of know how companies operate behind the scenes. So we've dealt in our own Hui, so we know we know what the words I handed it out to the world. Yeah, well, I'm speaking of Hawaii. There's a lot of it in this episode. So this week, I'm just gonna dive right in. We're talking about clothing, dealing with clothing, basically clothing waste, and specifically I was supposed to delve into thread up which is like online consignment reselling. So yes, but this is it's a death cult. I'm just gonna give that away now. Not that thread up is necessarily a death cult unto itself but clothing waste in the United States. Oh, yes. Is a death cult. Okay, this may be our other famine of the this is not a My Little Pony. So okay. No, yeah, but there's Don't Don't worry we will get to the good the good good. Okay, thank God. So I just I'll just go through real quick my my sources this week. US News and World Report. They had seven top online consignment shops for selling your clothes the guardian. This is an article I saw actually on Instagram that I've been saving in my phone for about eight weeks now. But the Guardian had it's like a death pit how Ghana became fast fashion is dumping ground. Oh, Lord, just give it away. The Better Business Bureau complaints about threat up ink. The roundup had 17 most worrying textile waste statistics and facts. Great America had what really happens to unwanted clothes. The good trade ad How does textile recycling work? Reader's Digest had an article on this is what really happens to your used clothing donations. Vogue had an article on how sustainable is consigning clothing. The real role is glad you asked. And then we hate waste which you introduced us to last week, which is a blog written by New Yorker. Oh, yeah, she had a bit about visible mending. So I really I just added that in because I was like, that's perfect. So those are my sources for this week. I wanted to start with what is thread up. If you're like me, and you're chronically online, your Facebook ads on your Instagram ads feed you throw it up or other stores like this. It's it's an online consignment store. So consignment is when a store takes something and sells it on your behalf. And they keep a percentage of it. And then if they don't sell it, they either give it back to you or donate it, you know, whatever. And they there are consignment search for furniture and places like that's for the record. If you need new furniture and you want something nice. A lot of estate sales in places will sell nice furniture. For a bargain of the price. I've always wanted to go to one live consignment stores. And they're better than antique stores. Usually state of Oh, estate sales are great, too. Yeah, but sorry. A little depressing. But yeah, yeah. It's kind of a celebration of life sometimes. I don't know. Oh, good. I have used threat up several times. So I'm really curious about and I have opinions, but okay, well, so the idea is, they take your unwanted clothes in a clean out bag, which they send you when you sign up. They sort them for what sellable. They sell what they can on your behalf. They pay you for it they could sell and then they do what they want with the rest unless you ask them to send it back to you, that's the basic premise, you're supposed to send them gently used clothing. And pay back is a percentage of what they sell based on its selling price. So the smaller the, the lower the price they can sell it for the less they'll give you. So you get like three to 15% for stuff that's under $20. And then up to 80%. of stuff that sells for $200. Or Wow. So it's, it's not really worth it for you to sell like a T shirt, that's going to be $4. Because you're gonna get 3% of that, you know, yeah, it's you get Penny literal, literal things. And they do. Often they'll offer of credit, like store credit. So like if you've ever shopped at the Buffalo Exchange? Yeah, that's a very common consignment well, not consignment store because they they buy the clothes from you outright, but they can give you store credit, which is worth more than cash. Yeah, the issue is like if if it doesn't sell and you don't reclaim it, thredUP gets to do whatever they want with it. So we'll get into that a little later. Okay, US News and World Report also lists queenly, the real real vestia? Collective Poshmark and Kittelson. Those are the seven including thrown out, okay, list for online consignment shops. So why would you use thread up? Okay, it's easy, they just send you this clean out bag, you throw all the unwanted clothes that you have in there, and you drop it in the mail, piece of cake, right? You may be able to make money, you may be able to get some money for, you know, your high end Chanel dress that you've worn once or your J Crew dresses still has tags on you may you may make some money off of that, you can get rid of the clothes, you don't know what to do with if you're not close to a thrift store or something where you could drop it off and you don't feel like donating it. It's it's makes it really easy and and then you may think in the back of your mind that you're donating the clothes in the end because they say that they might donate them if they can't sell them. So okay, I wish they would recycle them. But I might have made that up in my head, I think it's a little fuzzier on the Okay. The other thing is, it does reduce your footprint. Now these statistics are kind of a little weird to get to. So according to this article by Vogue, where they're talking about the real real, which had just they just created their own sustainability calculator. So the real real is committed to sustainability and fashion. And they, whatever you sell, or buy used on there, it helps you calculate like what you're saving in terms of global warming or climate change, output. So for instance, they said to put it in perspective, consigning one pair of jeans, conserves 279 litres of water as, as compared to like, a new pair of jeans being created, right? A silk dress saves 30 litres of water, a cashmere sweater saves 80 litres of water. So they're ever these are averages based on the fact that the real world does not have transparency into the production of garments listed on its site. So that's an issue is that we don't really know how much water it takes to produce jeans and things because, okay, that's just an average. Okay? And also is that including, like shipping costs or shipping, that's just water usage, the sustainability calculator, which we could go into, would look at different aspects, like, how much of the carbon footprint it is, I mean, that that was just a sampling of what a sustainability calculator will tell you. I don't have serious numbers on how much it saves to buy a used pair of jeans as opposed to Okay, yeah, cuz, like you said, it's shipping right? Just averages. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, that's, that's a really tough calculation, but this was just in the production of a new pair. Okay. It takes 279 litres of water to make a new pair of jeans on average. Yeah. Right. Which is a lot of water actually, that is a lot. They also said that they estimate that for every one item that you can sign a third of that item is not produced a new so basically, if you can sign three pairs of jeans, you're saving the world from creating a new pair of jeans. Interesting kind of a weird number but yeah, I mean, okay, sure. That is an interesting way to look at it is that like creating these clothing new is is a huge problem. So you might want to use a consignment store to buy and sell your clothes for that. Okay, now why wouldn't you use throw it up? Well, the hassles don't take very much first off voters. They don't I mean number but it also increases your willingness to buy junk clothes because you think you can just resell them so it increases wish cycling right eating totally you're just like oh I can just give this a throw it up when I'm done. You also may not be donating the clothes you think you're donating or recycling them? And in my opinion, it's a scam. Really? No? Yes. Okay, so my story about throw it up. The reason I I don't like them. When I was getting married, I bought a dress from Saks Fifth Avenue. And being a soon to be bride i was like all lose weight. So I bought a size that I was like a wish size, right? Yes, I never got to another weight I got diagnosed with an eating disorder, I actually ended up gaining 30 pounds. So God, I couldn't send the dress back to Saks Fifth Avenue. Because I took too long, they had I guess, a 90 day window for returns. And by the time I was like, this isn't going to work. I was well past that. So I said, You know what, I'll sell it on thread up. I had been using thread up to buy clothing. I had us there Clean Out Bag service once and sent them a bunch of clothes, and hadn't made any money off of it, I think of like 220 cents off of a sweater or something. So I was like, okay, but this is a designer dress, it's worth money. Like it's worth $300 It's still got the tags on, it's still in the bag, you know that it came in? Well, so I sent it to throw it up. And I was I didn't click on there, like send it back to me if it doesn't sell. Because I was like, There's no way it's not going to sell. So a few weeks later, I'm like, Well, what happened to my dress? So I get on my app, and it says it had been destroyed because it was in bad shape. And they had said when they got it that there was a huge stain on it. Oh my god. And I said do you have like picture evidence of the stain? Because I sent it with the tags on in the bag? And they're like, No, we don't we don't keep that information. Like there's no frickin way that that happened. You know, I was so upset. And I mean, it was compounded by the fact that I was supposed to be my wedding dress and it you know, I had spent $8 on it. And I would had gained weight and all these miserable things about you know, what goes into the emotion of your wedding dress, right? The wedding industrial complex. Yes, yes. Even if you're like trying to be an alternative bride. It doesn't work. Yeah, no, no, no. It's in there. It's in there. I my theory, and I can't prove this is that somebody at the warehouse saw that I had said I didn't want it back. So they claimed it was stained, claimed it was destroyed. And they took it and they sold it. Because this dress was still for sale on Saks Fifth Avenue full price. Oh my gosh. And it wasn't like a wedding dress. It was no it was just a nice, I actually bought a different version of it and decided to wear it. I actually bought it like a full wedding dress because I you know got sucked in. But I I bought a version of it. It was just a really nice, and I might wear it to events and stuff. But I wore it to my rehearsal dinner. Uh huh. It was just like a, like, NICE CROCHET lace over like a slip. Just really pretty, like cream colored dress. Yeah, knee length. You know, very nice. But anyway, so I am not the only person that this has happened to if you look through, throw it up. A lot of people have problems with stuff going missing or you know, wow. And I think they may have tamp down on a little bit. I haven't I haven't touched them in, you know, five years since then. Whenever Yeah. Well, and also, they don't give you money back. Like you get 3% on they decide how much they're gonna sell something for. And the thing is, there just isn't a market for resale clothes. Like unless it's really nice. Nobody wants your stupid gap t shirt. Yeah, or like a crewneck with a stretch out neck. Yeah, well, that's absolutely not gonna sell. Right. Because I've seen a lot of clothes on there. And then I'm like, these aren't don't look like they're in good shape. Yeah, so my thing was, I was using threat up a lot when they first started and it was free to get Yeah, clean up bag. Yeah. And you could get it right away. But then as time went on, I think they just had to sort of figure out a way to be come profitable, probably when well and okay, I'm gonna get into that so the issue that people are pieces of shit when it comes to trying to resell clothes, and I don't know if it's sunk cost fallacy or wish cycling but again, nobody wants your T shirt with a stretched out neck. Nobody. Right if it has a stain on it. You can't sell that. I don't care if it's Sean Paul go ta like nobody wants your sweat stained. And the thing is people just jump if you give somebody a clean out bag their trash in it and send it to you. Right up charges me for that. So no, it makes sense. Yeah, it does make sense. I just remember they also shoot what was it was like just a bunch of fees are adding up and I was like, this is not worth it's not I would rather just give myself to Goodwill, honestly. Yeah. And the other thing is, yeah, they don't I don't think they donate their stuff. I didn't go deep in their website, I think they do send it to textile recycling companies, which is fine, it's fine with me, they might sell it to them. So they might be making more money off of it. Which, you know, go capitalism. But let's talk about the clothing industry. Just so we can get a hang on. Why is this happening? According to round up.org, this is just gonna be a Rolodex of numbers. Okay, up to 100 billion garments are produced by the fashion industry worldwide every year 100 billion garments 100 There aren't even 10 billion people on the earth. So consider that. And not not many of them have purchasing power to buy new garments, either. So just consider that 100 billion garments for maybe 2 billion people. Okay, Sheezus 50 billion garments per person, right? Yikes. Each year, as much as 92 million tonnes of clothing ends up in landfills. Only 20% of all textiles that's towels, clothing sheets are collected for reuse or recycling. globally. So as a percentage, 20% One in five. Yeah, almost 60% of all clothing material is actually plastic. So that's nylon, acrylic and polyester. Okay? And they're just everywhere. So it's, it's plastic. It's plastic. Right? textile production generates 42 million tonnes of plastic waste, making the textile industry the second highest industrial sector in plastic after packaging. So you're putting Dow Jones or not Dow Jones? Dow? Yes. Dow Jones chemical company, right. I think just Dow. I'm sorry. Dow Jones is the stock market. Sorry. I worked in finance. It's Dow the Dow Chemical Company fucking loves I'm sorry. Pardon my French loves. Don't love apologize. Yeah, it leaves it on Spotify. So we're fine. Does it? Yeah. The other night I was like other people need. That is funny. Yeah. So anyway, so packaging, and then clothing and textiles. Okay, just consider that if you hate plastic put fast fashion up there. Okay. Every time a synthetic garment is washed, it releases tiny plastic microfibers into the water. Yes, up to 500,000 tons of microfibers end up in the ocean every year for the turtles. Holy shit. Textiles and fashion waste account for 9% of annual microplastic pollution. What footwear industry and garment industry combined are responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. 8% Oh my god, the US generates just over 17 million tonnes of textile municipal solid waste per year, according to the most recent EPA data, which I think is from 2018 Still, so that's 112 pounds per person. Textile junk every year. You said per year per year. 102 100 pounds. 12 pounds? I definitely don't but I'm not big into clothes. Yeah, well, that means your neighbor next door or my roommate who used to order something new on wish every day? God Yeah, so 60% of all unwanted clothes in textiles are just sent to the landfill in the US. Wow. Less than 15% are recycled and the rest 20% are burned. Hmm. Ya know, another interesting fact is we owned 60% more clothing than we did 15 years ago. 1550 60% more clothing than we own 50 Just 15 years ago. What? So that's in the 2000s 2005 how we've on six worlds is shipping Amazon. I mean, wish. It's easy. And the fashion industry has has done it. But we also wear each item 50% Fewer than we used to. Yeah. So you buy an item, you're gonna wear it half as much and you have twice as many clothes as used to. This is kind of makes sense. You know what now I'm making some connections here because remember, I said that like most of the plastic that we've created in the entire world has been in the last like 15 years. It's 17 years and baby. Oh my god. So clothing sales will reach 160 million tons by 2050. If we keep going at this rate. God, we cracked the code yet. This is plastic baby. Julie's target shopping trip is the problem. Your Amazon habit is the problem. Oh my gosh. Okay, so you have all these clothes. Now. We all love Marie Kondo. We love the clean out. You get rid of you have 60% more clothes than you've had before. And then you realize like my closet is over stuff and I never wear any of it and it makes me miserable. What do I do? I donate it right? Okay. What happens to your clothes when you donate it? Reader's Digest went deep into it. On average, we throw away 780 Where 81 pounds of textiles every year. That's on average, you again, according to that other statistic is 112 pounds per person, according the latest census statistics, so somewhere between 70 and 115 pounds per person a year that's just straight in the trash, just straight the trash. Okay? Okay, so Reader's Digest says, Here's how donations can go 90% of what you donate to your local charity shop. That's goodwill Salvation Army, whatever the thrift store down the road is we had one in Albuquerque that caters specifically to trans youth, which I love to donate to. And shop at. That's awesome. Yeah, but most of that will go to a textile recycler because it's unsellable because nobody wants her stupid shit. Okay, so most of the stuff you donate is not getting resold that it No, it will go to ties before Okay. Okay. Now the caveat for this is as long as there aren't major stains, oil stains, or mildew on it. People donate fucking mildewed clothing. I'm so angry about this. I'm sorry. I'm just going to drop the F bomb like incessantly during the show. No, guys, I used to work at a used bookstore. I might have mentioned that. And yes, it's like, some people were lovely and so clearly careful about their stuff. And it was all in really good condition. Often all hardbacks, whatever other people Oh, my Lordy, the trash book you would get with no cover and like, like stuff that was wet. Yeah. Like, how did this get here? People are trash. Like you don't want to see the interior is in most people's lives. People live in the weirdest thing. And you know what? I get it sometimes you're just overwhelmed. And you need to get those books out of your it's your mom's? Yeah, you know, and you've got to clean it out. I get it. Well, I was gonna say we're going to talk about this in at the end of the season about like hoarding, and it's truly interesting. I've already been doing a little bit of research and it's like, it's not, it's not like, we can't shame people for it. No, it's blind. However, society is 100% Textile recyclers use your clothing and whatever textiles, towels, this includes towels, linens, etc. Carpet, padding, insulation, rags, etc. Or they're sent to foreign countries for quote, unquote, recycling, and I will get into later. Sounds like plastic. Yeah. One interesting, it is very much like plastic. One interesting thing that Reader's Digest pointed out is that those roadside collection bins that say like donate your clothes here for charity, yeah, are especially the ones that are just like, painted with you know, they don't have like an official they're not Big Brothers, Big Sisters or whatever. They are actually usually just textile recycling companies. Oh, are like this is a charity. It's not. It's a textile recycling company. That's so interesting. Is there a problem with recycling textiles? No. Okay, that doesn't really bother me. To be honest. That is so much textile in the world that needs right. So I'm fine with that. But then sometimes they will that you're gonna say it's just a dumpster. No. Well, so I mean, depending on what goes in there if you throw a moldy rag in there, the whole rest of it is a dumpster now. Yeah, true. So yeah, but anyway, they're getting your stuff for free. Whereas they would have had to buy it from Goodwill or whatever. So that's sometimes kind of genius. Yeah, I know but sometimes they to operate legally with those boxes they have to donate a percentage of their charity their profit profits to charity The thing is you'll never know why. So if you're just desperate to get rid of you know clothing that you definitely can't resell just put it in one of those donation boxes. It'll be recycled. Wow. Or you can find a recycling company near you. But that's what what would you call it not green who even like charity Hui anyway, charity Hui? Yeah, that's that's charity. Who for sure. Yeah. So anyway, that's something to be aware of. Okay. Now, there are some times you may have noticed, I noticed because I bought some jeans from Levi's a couple of years ago. h&m, gap, Patagonia, maidwell. They all have these buyback programs. And or take back programs where like, if you're like done with your pair of jeans and like, they'll take it back, but only 1% of what they take back can be made into new clothing. Oh, usually because it's a cotton plastic blend. Hmm. So plastic is again the devil. Okay. Yes. Yes. Well, I'm reevaluating my entire wardrobe, but go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I know. So most of that gets donated to textile recycling companies. Oh, interesting. Couch stuffing. Okay, so just so you know, those they call those programs. They refer to them as good trade call them greenwashing. So really, they're grenouille, those are okay. Yeah. Because they're misleading about Yeah, cuz they say they can do more than I mean, they're basically like plastic recycling. They can't do most of what they're claiming they gotcha okay, because they do make claims They're turning it in to new clothes. Well, they're saying they'll try. Okay, so the caveat right or the try, and it makes you feel better about buying more stuff from them. Yes, exactly. Which is the same with a Coca Cola company. You feel fine buying a two liter bottle of Coke because you like Well, it's a good recycle, it won't right. Damn geniuses. Yep. And evil genius evil geniuses, right? Money makings wine anyway, according to green America, Goodwill's process is as follows 5% of the clothes they get are sent directly to landfills immediately, mostly because of mildew. Then they put stuff up for sale. And remember, there are human beings who are sorting this stuff. So don't throw your bullshit clothes in the poor people who have to do this. It's not like, yeah, it's rough. So they'll put it up for sale. If they cancel after four weeks, they are sent to Goodwill outlets where everything is 99 cents a pound. Okay. I don't know where those are. They're throughout the US. After that. They're sent to Goodwill auctions where they're all turned into mystery bins. Oh my God, I know somebody who goes to these. Okay. And they buy all that. Okay. Yeah. So you can buy a bin starting at $35. But you you bid on it. Basically. It's like Storage Wars. You don't know what's in it, but you're gonna get a bin full of clothes of textiles, clothes and needles. But anyway. And glass. Yeah, it's I've heard it's just junk. Yeah, it's really bad. Oh, that's horrifying. Yeah. Then they send whatever's left to textile recycling centers. So that's Hey, and so according to Reader's Digest, it's 90% of what you donate ends up in those recycling centers. Okay. So everything, at least all of the sellable clothes, they do try to sell it for four weeks. See, I thought they took a mutt like they just had so much that they couldn't even try to sell it. They just throw it away. Or throw it towards at least 5% Or so I think they do. I? I didn't think that for any reason. You're right. I'm just saying like, that kind of surprises me actually. Because it's so much so much stuff. Well, I think there may be a we may be missing a step in the sorting process where 5% is just mildewy or stained, and they have to Yeah, throw it away. And then probably more of it goes through sorting and is unsellable and so interesting. Yeah. Well, okay. Most thrift stores don't track what happens to the clothing after they sell it or give it away to the next step in the process. So the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. We don't know what the textile they don't know what happens your T shirt after it goes to the textile recycler. They don't know. Okay, so there's not like statistics on like, and then 90% of that is recycled and 5%. You know, it's we don't know. Oh, so we don't really know if they're actually using it. All right. We don't know. I mean, we'd have to go through what textile recyclers do. Right. So the good trades article on textile recycling says it's post consumer clothing. That's the stuff you bought more once and gave away. And pre Consumer Collection, which is scraps for manufacturers, hotels, hospitals, or clothing that was never worn because it was never sold. Okay? Materials are sorted by fiber, so natural versus synthetic and then graded for either resale so they can resell that to more manufacturers as a textile recycler or recycling. So they can this got weird for me, they can tread natural fibers and re spin them into yarn. Most of the stuff is turned in insulation, stuffing or cleaning rags, okay, because you can't. Now this was where I got a little confused. The process uses thermo mechanical processing, to separate plastics, right? Natural fibers in that process burn off in the heat. So if it's, if they're recycling a polyester or cotton poly blend garment, basically, they burn off the cotton and melt the polyester. And then they can write a reusable they can reuse the polyester so interesting. So they said that natural fibers can be responded to yarn, but that's actually harder to do than just plastic and reuse it. Hmm. So that means cotton is harder to recycle than polyester. Which is mind blowing. Yeah, that is, especially if it's already mixed. If it's like polyester mixed with something else. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Anyway, that was hard to wrap my brain around, yeah. So now let's get into the international clothing donation scheme. International importing of pre consumer clothing is extremely bad and post consumer clothing. So this is the article The Guardian article that I mentioned earlier, that I've been saving for eight weeks or whatever. They break it down for what happens in Ghana, which is the biggest importer of us clothing in Africa. Whoa, study. ain't gonna Oh, did you when I was in college? Yeah. Did you see this? Well, I did see a guy. So I went to Indiana University and I saw a guy with, like, who's your shirt? And I was like, hey, yeah, okay. Well, that wasn't you didn't know what it was. He was like, Yeah, Bergen cares about it. Well, they talk about, you know, used to be when they made all those Super Bowl shirts, they'd make winners, because you didn't have time to make it on demand the day that they went. So you have like, whichever team they had both teams as the winner. Yeah, so the losers are losers overnight. Yeah, well, because we've increased the amount of clothing we have so much in the past few years. This is a whole new issue in the last 15 years, right? They shippers take those bins from Goodwill or other aggregators, and ship them to Ghana. People will buy those things at auction and just ship them to Ghana. The city of Accra is this largest secondhand clothing market in the world. That's crazy. I didn't see a lot of clothes there. But I don't know if i Wow. I mean, how long ago was that? Well, yeah, 2010 okay as nine so it was probably right at the start, but you know, we're damn infest fashions fold right now. Damn. At that market. They'll separate the clothing into bales. Just again, it's a grab bag, and traders will spend 120 to $200 US dollars per bale 40% of the average bale in Accra has to be thrown away, because it's, it's worthless. Okay, so that's 100 tonnes every day of unusable clothing. 30% of that is collected by a municipal waste program. So the city of Accra has a waste program that will collect it, the rest of it ends up in illegal dumps or ditches and drains. Yeah, that isn't surprising. Yeah, because that is a problem and that's why we ship our waste aways because we don't want it in our rivers. Well, it ends up in in According this article, the odour river. So the article notes that the quality of secondhand clothing has decreased dramatically over the past few years. Thank you fast fashion, which is why the Odell river is now so polluted by discarded clothing. There's they're not able to resell it like they could have when you were there. Oh my god. Wow. That is crazy to me. Yeah, this in this article, they focused on an activist who's a swimmer named Yvette Jaco Nadu teta. And she swam the river to raise awareness about the pollution. Wow. And she had a research vessel follow her and take samples of the water as she swim. I was gonna say, did she get really sick? Well, no, I think she was able to do but like, the pictures are harrowing. I mean, it is seriously go look at it. It's horrible. And you know, it's plastic in the water. And it clogs the waterways and it it seriously affects nearby farming. I mean, it is. It's awful. So that's what happens to your clothing. Like it ends up in the river in Ghana. And it ends up in the sea turtle stomach and you're not going to sell it on thread up. Nobody wants. Nobody wants it. So what can you do? quit buying cheap new clothes. Seriously. That's it stop quick on target and buying that dress. Not only are they usually made in sweatshops, right? I didn't even go into that. About who is making your clothing, children or underpaid workers in horrible conditions. But they're also made from plastics that pollute everything when you wash them when you throw them away. Whenever. So just stop. You have enough clothing. Wow. Well, I was gonna say and I also know for a fact that social media is contributing to it. Because there's lots of influencers who feel I have to I fall prey to it. I'm like, I need that dress. I need that dress. Yeah, that 55 cent dress. You're like, how is it so deep? Yep. Because it was made by a child and it's cheaply produced and they made a lot of them and it's plastic. And they're just gonna throw it away. Buy high quality clothing and have it tailored. That's it. Because if it's high quality and it's made by a sustainably made house, you know, I can't lose any right now. I know. I've looked at a few but we we should we will have an episode on sustainable clothing brands. But yeah, learn how to sew and fix clothing that has holes in it. So that was what the the trend that we were talking about visible. Yeah. So that that's a cool idea. Like it adds like a touch of personality to your shoes if you patch it with something not like a patchy by Michaels or whatever but like a like a created flower or like you can embroider stuff and like I actually know a woman here in town who does her own embroidery and patching and things and it's really personalized and really cool. I have a problem with like wearing the crotch out of my jeans yes not sure. Look upside of ideas for that. Well, I mean what there's like stitches you could do you know, like, there's there's I'm sure there's Something I mean, I'm not that creative myself. Yeah. My husband. I don't know why but Joe, just, he has razor knees. I have no clue. It's always only the knees. Even with like his raw denim jeans. He's worn the knees out. And I'm like, I literally have never done that in my life. So I know what you're doing. I have busted through I bust through in the news before I bust through anywhere else. So funny, maybe once but man pockets doesn't take him long. So my friend, he dies, his jeans, like when they fade. He has two pairs of jeans that he wears, and he dies and black. And you know, they weren't new, but he died. Very cool. Yeah. So that's something you could do to you can hold clothing swaps with your friends. Now this can be a crapshoot because your friends might have fast fashion sizes, or different sizes. I've gotten a lot of really great me down dresses. Yeah, my friends. And I've done that once before. I have some friends with really good taste some artists friends that I'm like, I'll take I'll take that. My sister and I send clothes back and forth. Sometimes. So that too. That's smart. Yeah. Yeah, use your Facebook Buy Nothing group. There's so many clothes on there all the time. And there are people like I've gotten a prom dress on there. That we use for our running group, right? Yeah, so you can those by nothing groups are pretty good. My again, mine won't let me in. I tried again. Boo. I don't know what the deal is. Yeah, sucks. That is weird. I know. Gatekeeping Yeah. Start your join freecycle though. Okay, go ahead. That's a good free cycles, great Craigslist. Free stuff, too. Right? Especially like baby clothes and stuff. Oh my god. Yeah, baby clothes, because they wear them for a day and then they're grown out of them. And it's and then they get stained by avocado. So it doesn't Yes, they have avocado stains. I just bought I went to Salvation Army. And I got Charlie. I think it's a handmade little apron. Oh, it looks handmade. But it was $1. And I was like, Yes, please. Yeah, I mean, that's it. Okay, that was my next thing is buy your clothes from thrift stores. I mean, you can use throw it up or have the real real I don't whenever and buy new to use stuff too. If you don't mind that they're scoundrels. I think the real role might be slightly better than threat but again, it's all there. They're making money off you the goodwill Salvation Army. I mean, I don't go to Salvation Army for religious purposes. But goodwill does use their stuff for for charitable purposes. And again, you can put there's probably thrift stores in your neighborhood that do good things. Oh, yeah. Like tiny, small. Yeah, small business for the first. I was also gonna say, I just remembered one reason I did dislike thread up is that they charge you to, if you don't like your clothes, they charge you to send them back. If I'm remembering correctly, and it was like not cheap. No, it's more than shipping. Yeah, it was absurd. Which is why one of the reasons I signed on not to have my $300 dress and back me. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. So try a rental service. I do know that some of the rental services have shady practices. I interesting. I did Rent the Runway for a minute I did was so freakin expensive and hard to find the right sizes because sizes are so different. Right? So much research. I only did like coats and yeah, like that. I enjoyed it. Like for events. I rented a dress for my birthday, which was great. So I think it's good for like weddings and stuff. I think. Yeah. It's cheaper than buying a new dress. For sure. And especially just what are you going to do with a new dress? But yeah, turn clothing into rags on paper towels. Mm hmm. reuse them? You know? I think I figured something out about the rags. If you use pinking shears, doesn't that stop the edges from fraying? I couldn't say that. But that's a very good possibility. Let me just look up one of pinking shears do ya to limit the length of frayed threads? So mine, I just cut up things are free like crazy. So just get some pinking shears? No, there we go. Okay, that that's smart. Yeah, so you can use me my mom used to use my dad's undershirts to like, wipe down windows and stuff. Oh, yeah, they're great. Yeah, they're soft. They're nice. Make sure now this is really important. Be better about your donations. Make sure you're really only giving good stuff to Goodwill or thrift store right? Because you know, Buffalo Shangela, like, whatever. But people will take whatever you have whatever trash you give them. And yes, your knee if you put one mildewed Ross rag, it can vary in a whole barrel of stuff and then it just is just going to end up in the river and gonna so just horrible do your own landfilling. If it's moldy if it's moldy throw it away. I you know, that's the one thing you should be throwing away is moldy stuff. Yes. The other thing is you can learn to sew and make your own clothes using upcycled materials which I will applaud you for I have I bought a sewing machine I have done nothing with it. But that also for for mending your clothing is really a good idea. Just learn to sew, just just people are really good at it. And I have friends who are really good at it. And it's really amazing. I also have a sewing machine and I like have sewn before and I know the basics of how to operate it. But yeah, creating Yeah. Yeah, creating new stuff from scratch. Yeah, my sister has done a lot. She's really we're supposed to have a sewing session where we get on, Zoom together, and she's going to teach me how to sew. But oh, that's really cool. She has three children. So that's harder to do than it sounds right. We'll see. Maybe sometime soon. But so those are just my ideas. There's plenty of things you can do with clothes. But number one is just quit buying new clothes. Just stop. This is probably the biggest place that American consumers can reduce their plastic consumption just reduce reduce reduce. Yeah, that infuriates me and really feels like a kick in the ass to be like, Oh, plastic. Oh, yeah, that I didn't even think about. I mean, we've talked about how bamboo and hemp and cotton all use all this water. plastic. Plastic is terrible. Yeah, it's really bad. There's nothing good about it. No. I mean, it's cheap. That's it, but only like, it's cheap on the front end, and on the back end, it's gonna kill all the sea turtles. So that's, that's the price you pay. So yeah, I know, it's fun to go to Target and buy cheap clothes. And I know sometimes you just need a t shirt. You know? Fine. Okay. But really consider how much closing do you need? Really, right? I want to start a capsule wardrobe. I started to try to do that too. But then I'm not a capsule kind of girl. But I do. Like, I do need to wear the clothes that I have, you know, right? Because I work from home and I'm a slob. So I were like living is it's I'm gonna say it is hard, especially as a woman who's been diagnosed with an eating disorder, my weight has fluctuated and who's over 30, who's over 40 It's going even further. My weight has fluctuated insanely, right. And so, I mean, same like after having a baby, it's I've never, I haven't stabilized, like all over the place. Part of me is like, Okay, you just have to learn to get rid of the clothes and make you feel bad because they're too small. But then it's like, then I'll lose the weight. And I'll come back, right. Like, I wish I had that to two dresses that I gave away six years ago. Right. You know, it's like, all right. So yeah, I mean, that's a big part. Yeah, I can't buy clothes right now. Because I've know what no idea what size I'm going to be in a year. But I can go to thrift stores and find five things I like wearing and wear those, you know, and that's it's worth the effort. It's worth the time. Yeah, because I think that's what we're all it can be a confidence boost if your clothes fit well, but I think that's kind of what you're saying is like buy good stuff that a tailored Yeah, that you get tailored it out. Yeah. And then it will actually fit you again. Now that's expensive. So it's not for everyone. Right? But I mean, go to the thrift store and find one teacher that fits you well rather than four T shirts that kind of fits you shoddily you know, exactly. Be more choosy about your clothing. Yeah. Okay, so now the TLDR granola rating for thredUP specifically, I want to give it a soggy because of my personal experience with them and I'm still mad about it. But in all honesty, I'm going to give all these online consignment stores a three overall because a chewy, so our scale is from one to five one being the worst being soggy. Five being breaker tooth off, which is the best because crunchy granola is the best this is three is chewy, while online consignment stores, like throw it up do reduce the carbon footprint of clothing consumption overall. Okay, there's no arguing with that not make not buying something new is is best. However, they still encourage unending consumption, which is the reason we have this problem in the first place. Right? Although we don't know what they do with the clothes they don't sell, so they may just be contributing to the pile up in Ghana anyway, right? It's still better than throwing your clothes directly in the trash, which apparently just I didn't realize this. Most people just do that. Yes. Because only 20% of textiles in the US are recycled. So Right. I mean, at least take it to one of those shady looking bins. That's actually just a textile recycling place. Just do that. Just drop it off. It's true. That's very true. Yeah. So anyway, quit throwing your stuff in the trash, reuse it quit buy a new stuff, period. Yeah, so that's my takeaway from Wow. Yeah. athleisure has a whole new, like I have a whole new understanding of athleisure yoga pants. Those are all plastic. Yeah. Yeah. Wells's. Yeah, so well, anyway. Yeah. Happy fuckface fast fashion. FFF. That's what Um Thank you. That is a lot of research. Oh, my God. That is like such a topic. I didn't even You didn't even scratch the surface. Yeah, absolutely. I'm impressed that you even were able to consolidate that rage researching. That was plastic in the Yeah, me. Yeah. Rage. Yeah, classic rage. So okay, well what's what's next week we're doing home composting. Oh, thank you. Composting is next week. Yes, we're going to be talking about mill. So I wanted to look into this new mill. It's sort of like a, from what I understand. It's like a startup kind of home composting system. So I wanted to say, yeah, there's a bunch of ads for it. You've probably seen online. Yes, we're chronically online. Yeah. Like on Instagram. I've seen a bunch. And so I just wanted to look into it and see if it's legit or not, are worth our time. Okay, so I'm not going to sign up for it. It's too expensive, but Oh, bummer. Okay, well, that already gives it a knockdown aim, no, hard day. But I'm going to look for reviews and stuff and kind of consolidate it. So. Okay. Well, I'm excited to hear about it. And yeah, you'll see it's not even like crazy expensive. It's just not for me right now. So yeah, that's her. Yeah, one thing at a time, you got to buy your metal straws first. And I have a home composting bin that I got for free from my county and I want to try to set that up and actually do my own composting. So that's really the plan. Yeah. So I gotta get on that and stuff. But you have a week. Yeah, exactly. I want to see warm filled compost by next week. On your Yeah, it's gonna be two years, both lush Brown. Yes. My petunias came back. Did they? Oh, good. Deer sprays everything. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, they're thriving. Yeah, I should post pictures. Yes. Post rip back from the dead. My zombie petunias. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, have a good night and yeah, thanks for tuning in everyone please. If you could leave a review leave a review we would love five stars we'll take for whatever granola writing you want to give us we will tolerate or we break your teeth off. Yeah, please please tell us we broke your teeth off today. We'll pay for your dental work no no we won't do not promise that they will come for you. I'm already getting sued by threat up for calling them treacherous. Yes, but yeah, are use reviews help a lot. Yeah, like surprisingly, anywhere you listen, you can just scroll down and give us some stars and leave a written review. If you feel like it'd be a time so we really appreciate you spending your time with us and learning about fast fashion today. Alright, goodnight.